End Of The World As We Know It
by angel-death-dealer
Summary: Based on the greys anatomy episodes, the Fantastic Four get caught up in a horrific scenario in which Sue's life is in jeapordy thanks to her heroism. Will they be able to save her, or can they do nothing but wait?
1. Chapter 1

**_This is the preview for this story...the first chapter will be up shortly._**

**Today, is too late  
How long do we have to wait?**

_"You have a feeling?"_

_"Yes."_

_"What kind of feeling?"_

_"Like I might die."_

**Oh no, I think she knows  
That's why I can't let go  
**

_"The man I love doesn't love me anymore."_

**I feel this burning inside  
A feeling that no one should know**

_"I have a feeling."_

_"He loves you."_

_"If you really believe that, you won't tell him I'm up here."_

**No apologies  
I never thought you'd be so easily deceived**

_"It's probably something that we can't help with. Look at the amount of paramedics here."_

_"What happened here?"_

_"I was wondering when you were going to show up."_

**We're mad with regret  
Memories that we'll both forget**

_"You have a way to get me out of this, right?"_

**So far, it's been so hard  
To cover up these scars**

_"Do you understand any of that?"_

_"It's been a while since I've studied with medical science, but I understand."_

**I see this falling apart  
It's easy to just let it go**

_"What do you know that the rest of us don't?"_

**No luck between us both  
So I keep waiting**

_"You need to leave now."_

_"She gets to stay?"_

**But not with this  
So now I leave with**

_"He's going to kill me if he knows..."_

_"Then don't tell him."_

**No apologies  
I never thought you'd be so easily decieved**

_"If I'd known you'd get all the action, I'd have let you stay in bed."_

**Now I'll just hang my head (I'm falling further out of place)  
While I walk with the dead (All the lies I can't erase)  
I'll just hang my head**

_"All that blood on her clothes and none of it was hers..."_

**What's left  
To show**

_"It's going to be okay."_

_"You don't know that."_

**It's so bad but I've got to know**

_"What, exactly, happened?"_

_"You mean the shock part? It was shocking. I'm shocked."_

**What's right  
Don't know**

_"We re-enact."_

_"Nobody re-enacts World War 2!"_

**How to find it out on my own**

_"You have to leave now."_

_"I'm not leaving her up here. Her boyfriend would kill me."_

_"He's not my boyfriend."_

**One by one, we both fall down**

_"Was there an explosion?"_

_"No, why?"_

**But who's the first one to hit the ground now?**

_"If you love her, why don't you just tell her?"_

_"Because I'm me, and I'm crap with emotions."_

**Whats worse?**

_"Oh, god."_

_"Susie."_

_"What have I done?"_

**To kick or fall?**

_"You're not qualified to be on this floor."_

_"Neither is my sister, but she's still here."_

**Or be stuck standing alone?**

_"I don't want you to move. Not your body, not your hand, not an inch."_

_**I'll keep your promises**_

_"You're not going to die."_

_"I'll try not to."_

**If you take back everything I said**

_"You're starting to scare me."_

_"Don't be scared. Everything is going to be fine."_

**I find it's got so cold now**

_"She was trying to save his life."_

_"And now she might die because of it."_

_"No one's going to die."_

**That I've lost my heart and soul**

_"You had to say you were going to die today."_

_"I told you."_

**No apologies**

_"We're evacuating this part of the hospital."_

_"I'm not leaving without Sue."_

**I never thought you'd be so**

_"Is that bad?"_

_"Yeah, that's bad."_

**Easily decieved**

_"You are keeping him alive."_

**Now I'll just hang my head**

_"He didn't want to die, and neither do I."_

**(I'm falling further out of place)**

_"The last time we were both together and happy...I want to be able to remember that."_

**While I'll walk with the dead**

_"I shouldn't even be here, this is some kind of mistake!"_

**(All the lies I can't erase)**

_"Don't let me go, please."_

**I'll just hang my head**

_"Is it me, or is she shaking?"_

_"What?"_

_"She's shaking."_

_**Hang my head**_

_"I'm scared."_

_"I know."_

**I'll just hang my head**

_"I think I'm going to take my hand out now."_

**Hang my head**

_"I guess we're even now."_

_"Seriously? You're saying this like it's a game!"_

_**While I walk with the dead**_

_"Something's gone wrong. I know it has."_


	2. Chapter 2

**Okay, this is based on the two episodes End of the World and As We Know It from season two of greys anatomy. I thought that the storyline for that was just brilliant, and you know me and my imagination...I can turn anything into Sue and Reed fluff. Enjoy!**

"I'm just not going."

That was her reason. She just wasn't going to go. She didn't particularly want to, and whereas before a sense of duty would have had her up and awake at six o'clock in the morning, dragging the other three out of bed so that they'd be on time, today was different. Today, she wasn't going to go. So, that meant that today, she wasn't going to be getting everyone else up, making sure that they were fully conscious when they began the cab journey to the other side of the city. Today, everyone else was going to have to get her to leave the bedroom.

"Sue, we _have _to." Reed tried to convince her.

"I'm not going to." She said simply, burrowing further under the blankets of the bed and hoping that this would shield her from their constant insistence that she get out of bed.

This responsibility had fallen onto Reed at first, and she had suspected that it might. Recently, or rather, ever since the four had officially decided that they would all live together at the Baxter Building, Sue and Reed had adopted a routine every morning. Whoever of the two was awake first would make the coffee and take it into the other person. Then, for a good hour or so, they would sit on the other side of the mattress, and the pair would read the morning news, with music playing in the background sometimes, and relish in the coffee and the peace that settled over the building before Johnny made his usual, and rather annoying, wake up call on Ben. However, this morning, the coffee had gone cold, the newspapers were lying untouched at the end of the bed, and even Johnny was nowhere in sight. That left Reed sitting on the edge of the bed beside her, and Ben standing back, trying not to laugh at the interaction between the two.

"It's just a meeting." Reed told her, for what felt like the thousandth time in at least ten minutes.

"I don't care." She said, pressing her face further into the pillow so that her next words were muffled. "You guys go without me."

Reed looked at her strangely, even though her face was hidden, and so she couldn't see the weird expression he targeted at her. "Sue, remember what happened that time Johnny didn't show up?" He reminded her.

Oh yes, she could vividly remember the morning they had the meeting in question. Eleven o'clock in the Mayor's office, and Johnny was nowhere to be seen. An hour had passed, and he still hadn't turned up. He'd been at a party the night before, celebrating their defeat of Victor von Doom in the city centre, and that was why they'd been called in for an emergency meeting with the Mayor, to discuss damages and, as it had soon turned out, whether or not they would become what the Mayor had described as 'government funded superheroes'. Although the idea was at first absurd, a month later, the Baxter Building had been completely remodelled, and Reed had been more than thrilled with his new laboratory, and each of the team had been just as happy with the idea of a personal office, where they could actually spend some time alone. However, Johnny's absence had meant that this entire planning process had been directed through deadly glares from the Mayor, as well as a lecture about working as a team.

"I'm just not going." She repeated.

As she rolled onto her other side, Reed looked at Ben with something akin to a glare. "You're supposed to be helping." He whispered loudly to his friend, who, so far, had been brought into help, yet had done nothing of the sort. In fact, he'd just stood back and watched the amusing scenario of Reed attempting to coax Sue out of bed by any means necessary.

Clearing his throat, Ben stepped forwards, swallowing a laugh back into his chest before it surfaced. "Come on, Susie." He told her. "We'll only be an hour, and then you can come back and sleep."

"I don't want to sleep." She told them, as if they were getting the entire wrong idea about her intentions. She shrugged into the pillow. "I'm just not going."

"It won't be that bad." Ben tried to assure her. "We'll be in there for about an hour, and then we can leave, and then we'll go to the mall..." At this point, Reed jumped in, silently throwing his arms around in a desperate 'no' gesture. "...and we can do some shopping or something." Reed collapsed onto the mattress, his legs still hanging off the side of the bed whilst he now lay horizontally to Sue's vertical position as she curled at the top end of the bed.

However, Sue simply grabbed a pillow and covered her head with it to block out the attempts of the two men beside her. "I don't want to go shopping."

She couldn't go out, because she had a feeling.

----

"You have a feeling?"

Johnny had been the next person to try, and, as it clearly seemed, their last hope. Usually, Johnny's idea of a wake up call involved a broken alarm clock, a glass of water, and, in some cases, a handful of whipped cream. However, today, he was standing beside Sue's mattress with his hands shoved into his pockets. He was exhausted. He'd been staying at his girlfriend, Maddie's, the previous night. Maddie was the first long-term relationship he'd ever came close to having. Normally, a relationship for him involved alcohol and a life-span of about three days. Maddie, however, was different. He found himself wanting to be with the young medical intern as much as possibly, and they had already been dating for five months now. He'd stayed over at her place the night before, and so he'd remembered at the last minute about the meeting, so he'd ended up leaving hers whilst she was still asleep to come home to meet the rest of the team, only to be collared by Ben and Reed on his entrance, and all but pushed into Sue's bedroom with the simple instruction of 'get her out of bed', and a time limit of ten minutes.

But when he'd asked her about why she didn't want to get out of bed, she'd told him that she had a feeling, as if that were supposed to explain everything.

"Yes." She told him simply, in answer to his question.

He rolled his eyes, sighing. "Okay, what kind of feeling?" He asked her tiredly, yawning under his breath. He was pleased to say that Maddie's idea of a five-month-anniversary dinner had ended in a rather enjoyable night by which he hadn't got much sleep.

"Like I might die." She told him.

"Today?" He asked her. "Tomorrow? In fifty years? 'cause we're all gonna die eventually." He told her, before reaching out and trying to steal the blankets away from her. "But now we're late, let's go." He told her impatiently. He wasn't really desperate to get to the meeting as much as he was to get home from the meeting so that he could sleep.

Sue whipped round in the bed to face him, looking at him incredulously as she propped herself up on the bed with one arm supporting her upper body. "Johnny! Come on!" She cried out.

Groaning under his breath, he sat down on the mattress beside her. "Okay," He complained, sitting calmly and composing himself. "This is me being supportive."

She eyed him suspiciously. "Really?"

"Yeah, whatever, I'm totally supportive. Go." He told her quickly.

Taking this as a chance to get things off her chest to her brother, Sue waited for a short moment to make sure that he was being entirely serious, and then started off on the rant that she had been holding in since the moment her eyes had opened, and the feeling of impending doom had spread throughout her.

"Okay, for starters, the man I love doesn't love me anymore, and he chooses science over me the entire time, and that science basically controls our lives now because everyone loves us and we're heroes." She explained, using large hand gestures to try and convey the frustration, before dropping her tone so that it was much calmer, and with deep sadness within it. "You know, I can't remember the last time that Reed and I kissed?" 'cause you never think that the last time is the last time. You think that there will be more. You think that you'll have forever, but you don't." She took a shaky breath for a moment, fighting down the emotion that had swelled within her aching heart as she finally admitted how she felt to someone, before she threw herself back onto her side as she had been lying before, her hyped up rant returning full steam. "Plus, my conditioner stopped working and so my hair feels dry as straw. Aunt Mary's on my back because we haven't visited in ages. Dad keeps calling me to complain about his new neighbours music and asking me if there's anything the Fantastic Four can do about that. I just...I need something to happen." She told her brother. "I need a sign that things are going to change. I need a reason to go on. I need some home! And in the absence of hope, I need to stay in bed and feel like I might die today." She concluded, tugging the blankets back over her body.

Johnny stood up, looking thoughtful for a second. He could understand how much Sue was frustrated with Reed, because the amount of sexual tension between the two was frustrating him as well. Ever since they had defeated Victor and had his frozen body shipped back to his home country, Sue and Reed had been toying around each other without evening realising it. It had gotten to the point where they were acting like a married couple just without the sex and the kissing. They made coffee for each other, they went out together, they did all-night movie marathons of the films from their teenage years. There was only so much that he and Ben could take before they had attempted to get the two together, but even their matchmaking attempts hadn't worked. However, Sue had found herself falling more and more in love with her ex-boyfriend once again, but because of Reed's experiementation with their powers, and his concern that they could be progressive or degenerative, it meant that no matter what happened, she always came second to science.

He nodded to himself, still looking thoughtful, and, in his opinion, mimicking a professional pschologist rather well. That is, until he lept onto the bed, jumping up and down as he threw the blanket to one side, rather like a child waking his mother in the middle of the night, completely eradicating any hopes of Sue staying in bed. He stopped jumping, and looked down at her.

"Whatever, we've all got problems." He told her. "Now, get your ass out of bed, we've got a meeting to go to, and if I've got to sit and be bored for an hour, so do you. Now! Move!" He told her, nudging her with his foot so that she very quickly got out of the way.

With his mission accomplished, Johnny stepped down from the bed. Sue scrambled out of her room to get away from her 'psycho brother', as she muttered under her breath to him. Opening her bedroom door, she stomped past Reed and Ben, who were waiting outside in the hall. Johnny looked at them, who sighed with relief when she had slammed the bathroom door behind her, and just by them looking at him, they could see that his ego had enlarged by about three miles.

"We're good to go." He told them, heading in the opposite direction down to his bedroom.

----

It didn't take long for Sue to shower and get ready. Of course, they were going to be late, but at least now they would all be there together. It wasn't going to be a long time that the Mayor would be waiting for them, so they could tell a small lie and blame the rush-hour traffic for their tardiness. Outside, the taxi-cab was waiting on the edge of the sidewalk. Sue stopped outside of the door, halfway between the entrance of the building and the taxi that awaited them. The streets around them, she noticed, were empty. It had taken four months before the paparazzi had calmed down around their home, but whilst she was thankful for it, she hadn't yet grown used to the lack of camera flashes when she stepped outside. She looked up at the sky, trying to shake the bad feeling that still hadn't disappeared. Johnny walked past her getting into the taxi, but she made no move to follow him.

"Are you all right?"

Sue turned her head, looking down from the rare blue sky above them to see Reed now standing beside her, a curious yet worried expression taking hold of his face.

She debated about whether or not to tell him, but then decided that no harm could come of it. "I have a feeling." She told him.

Rather than asking what kind of feeling she had, as Johnny had done, Reed joined her in looking up at the clear sky, nodding faintly. "I get those." He told her softly.

"You do?" She asked him.

He looked back down to her. "Yes."

"How do you make it go away?" She asked him.

He gave her a gentle smile. "If you wait long enough, it passes." He advised.

"Promise?"

He nodded. "I promise."

Taking his word to heart, Sue stepped forwards to the taxi, sliding into the seat beside her brother. Reed remained on the sidewalk for a moment, looking up at the sky once more, before closing his eyes, inhaling deeply. Ben stepped up beside him, looking at his best friend with a strange look.

"What are you standing out here for?" He asked him.

"I'm waiting for it to pass." Reed muttered, walking forwards and getting into the cab beside Sue.

Confusion took over his rocky features, as Ben was left standing there alone. "Waiting for what to pass?"


	3. Chapter 3

**Thank you all for your lovely responses for the preview and the first chapter! I'm glad you like Johnny in Cristina's role. It just had to be him, really, didn't it?**

The meeting had been as boring as expected. So boring, in fact, that all of them were content to just go home and spend the day relaxing, something which rarely happened. Usually, they were called to assist with many mild catastrophes, whether they were attacks, collapsing buildings, or, the most frequent, buildings on fire. Of course, Johnny loved to gloat that his powers were currently the most useful to them all, but whenever he did so, he was instantly reminded of how they had all contributed to the rescue missions. Johnny was going to drop by the hospital at around lunchtime in hopes of catching Maddie when she wasn't looking over someones shoulder in a surgery. Ben was no doubt going to see Alicia for the afternoon at her studio, but Sue just wanted to go home and go back to bed.

The feeling hadn't passed yet.

Inner-city traffic caused by a car collision had meant that their taxi had offered to take them through the more suburban areas for no extra cost. Cheap taxi-fares had been only one advantage of everyone knowing who they were, and they had accepted this, wanting to get home as soon as possible. Sue just leaned her head against the cool glass of the window, closing her eyes and waiting for them to arrive outside the Baxter Building once again.

However, when the car stopped and she opened her eyes she found that she wasn't looking at the Baxter Building, but rather, found that they were still out in suburbia. Up above, flashing lights from ambulances and police cars were lighting up the street; the blue, red and green lights reflecting off all the nearby houses despite it being broad daylight. Johnny craned his neck to try and see past the cars before them.

"Let's check it out!" He insisted.

Reed, however, shook his head. "It's probably something that we can't help with." He pointed out. "Look at the amount of paramedics here."

"We can't just do nothing." Sue said, before she could stop herself. Reed turned to her ."If we can help, we should."

Reed kept his gaze trained on Sue, remembering the feeling she had spoken about that morning. If anything, he was worried that this might prove her right; especially if they were anything like his feelings, but still he nodded. "Okay."

They paid the taxi driver for the journey he had already taken them on, and then got out of the taxi. As soon as they opened the doors, they could hear a woman screaming up ahead, a terrified, hysterical scream that peirced into the air. They made their way through the traffic until they met one of the ambulances, and found themselves met with a catastrophe in the making. All around them, paramedics were running around, grabbing gauze and equipment. At one end of the clearing that had been made within the ambulances and squad cars, the screaming woman was trying to get to a nearby guerney, which was blocked from view at first. She was covered in blood, but her screams were of fear, not of pain. The police managed to restrain her enough to move her away from the guerney, where the real extent of the scene became horrific.

"Oh my God." Sue murmered, when, after a few moments, she realised what was happening to make the woman scream.

On the guerney was a man who she assumed was the screaming woman's husband. He was unconscious, and covered in more blood than his wife had been. Despite the fact that he had no hair, he still looked rather young in his facial features, but he was wearing a deep green suit with a brown shade to it that appeared to be extremely outdated. However, the reason for the screaming was no doubt because of the paramedic who stood over this man. She was a young girl, barely into her twenties, wide-eyed and innocent, but that didn't change the fact that she had her hand stuck in the man's chest.

Her entire hand had fit into the gaping chest wound on the man that lay almost deathly still. With all the blood and chaos, it was impossibly to tell, even as they drew closer, whether or not the man was breathing. Clearly, however, he was, otherwise the paramedics around the younger girl wouldn't be so intent on careful movements and insiting that she didn't move her hand at all. However, the good that seemed to come from this action was that her hand was plugging the wound, preventing him from bleeding out anymore.

"What happened here?" Reed asked aloud as they drew closer to the paramedics.

No one answered them, however, a dark-haired woman with peircing blue eyes soon appeared at Johnny's side, nudging his shoulder with her own. "I was wondering whether or not you were going to show up." She murmered to him.

Johnny turned at the voice, seeing his girlfriend standing beside him. He smirked at her. "Always good to see you, too, babe."

Reed turned away from the unconscious man to look at Maddie. "What happened?" He repeated.

"We don't know." Maddie told him simply. "The police got called because there was reports of loud noises and bangs from the man's back yard, and then they found his injury and called us out."

Johnny frowned a little. "But you're an intern, not a paramedic."

Maddie rolled her eyes. "The pile-up in the city took all our paramedics so we came down here."

"Oh."

"Anyway." Maddie continued. "He's unconcious, but his wife won't stop screaming long enough to explain what happened to him."

"So, no one knows what happened?" Reed asked, frowning.

"Apparently he was doing something in the back yard with his friend, but this so-called riend scarpered ages ago, according to the neighbours." Maddie said, lacing her tone with something rather threatening. Something Johnny had learnt about her early on in their relationship was that she was a very loyal woman, especially when it came to her friends.

Sue looked worriedly at the paramedic, who appeared to be losing her cool underneath the barked orders of another paramedic. Her eyes met Reed's for a moment, with almost a pleading in them to help her, to comfort her, to do anything, but his gaze told her to remain where she was. It wasn't ordering, but she knew that she couldn't just go barging in and getting in the way of the paramedics.

Meanwhile, Maddie turned her attention to Johnny once again. "You were gone when I woke up." She told him, lowering her voice a little so that no one else from the group listened in to them.

"Oh, yeah." Johnny remembered, rubbing the back of his neck slightly. "I had to do a thing..."

"You didn't leave a note." She stated simply.

"Yeah, well...I had this meeting with the Mayor that I forgot about, and I didn't want to wake you up..."

Maddie cut him off, laughing to herself. "And once again..." She trailed off, speaking more to herself than to Johnny.

"What?" He asked her.

"I go to sleep, and I think everything's fine, but when I wake up, you're a little bit crazy again."

Johnny frowned at her, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jacket. "I'm not crazy." He insisted. "I just had a thing to do."

She nodded, clearly not believing him. Something had gotten him freaked out, and she couldn't quite place her finger on what it had been. "Okay." She said, dropping the conversation for now so that she could get back to her job.

The group made their way over to the paramedics, Maddie taking the front so that she could get close enough to examine the man. "Okay, what do we know about this guy?" She asked.

One of the paramedics called out to her, all the while preparing a ventilation source for the man. "His name's James Pollard, aged forty-six. Mechanisms of injury are still unknown, but in case you didn't quite catch it, he's got a large sucking chest wound."

"What are his vitals?" She asked.

"Tachychardic in the 140's, and BP holding in the 90's."

Maddie sighed, breaking away. Her eyes immediately met Reed's. "Did you understand any of that?" She asked him, noticing a similar expression to her own on his face.

He nodded. "It's been a long time since I've studied with medical science, but I understand."

"Then you'll understand that we need to get this guy back to the hospital, and quickly." Maddie said, taking a hair-tie from her wrist and pulling her dark hair away from her face as she spoke. Another doctor approached from the side, and looked over the man. He was much older, with a balding patch on the top of his head, but he appeared so undaunted by the state of the man before him that clearly he had been involved in surgeries for many years. "How is he, Dr. Bishop?" Maddie asked when he stepped back.

The elder doctor sighed. "Absent breast sounds on the right side, air bubbling on the side of the wound...he's shocky, and getting a little cyanotic. We need to get him intubated and-"

"Wait a minute." Maddie interrupted. "We're not going back to the hospital?"

Dr. Bishop shook his head. "Nothing can get through this traffic, it's backed up for miles. Anything we can do, we'll have to do here. The wait to the hospital through this traffic will kill him."

Maddie's eyes widened for a moment, more at the prospect of performing surgery in the middle of a suburban housing street than the possibility of the man dying. "This can't end well."

"No, but we have to try." Dr. Bishop reminded her. "Now, get him intubated, and place an occlusive dressing over the wound." Maddie nodded, and silently went to work, speaking only to the paramedics to pass her various pieces of equipment and dressing. In the meantime, Dr. Bishop turned to the young paramedic stuck in the middle of the chaos. "And who are you?"

"Becky." She answered in a tiny voice. "Rebecca Morris."

"Rebecca, why do you have your hand inside of this patient?" He asked.

However, before she could answer, another paramedic spoke up. "I'd like to say for the record that I told her not to."

Becky shot a look at this other paramedic, and then looked back at Dr. Bishop. "I tried to tamponade the wound with gauze and pressure, but the only thing that would stop the bleeding was my hand. Every time I try to move it, he starts bleeding out." Dr. Bishop leaned in closer, taking a look at the wound once again. "Can I take my hand out now?" She asked.

The paramedic who spoke before piped up again. "You don't stick your hand inside of a patient when you don't know how he was injured." He scolded her, his voice raising above the sirens. "You don't stick your hand inside of a patient at all."

Becky's reply was flustered and frustrated. "Yeah, I know that now!"

Dr. Bishop stood up straight, and looked at the paramedic. "Okay, you need to leave, now."

"She gets to stay?" He asked incredulously.

"She has her hand stuck inside of my patient." Dr. Bishop pointed out, and the paramedic stalked off to help with the screaming woman.

Becky looked up at Dr. Bishop rather thankfully for sending the other paramedic away. "Thanks." She said with a gentle smile.

"I wouldn't be too happy if I were you." He told her. "You've got your fingers plugging a major bleeder."

As Dr. Bishop turned away, Reed stepped before him. "Is there anything we can do to help?"

He eyed the Fantastic Four, who he had not yet seen until that moment, and, whilst he didn't look too happy about their presence, nodded. "We need a way to get this ambulance through to the hospital, and it needs to happen quickly."

Reed nodded, and turned away from him to face the other three. "Ben, we're going to have to physically move these cars in the traffic lanes to get the ambulance through. Sue, you go with the paramedic and try to keep her calm, the less her hand moves the better. Go with her to the hospital and we'll meet you there."

Sue nodded, and went to move away when Johnny stepped up. "What do you want me to do?" He asked.

"Get in the other ambulance with that woman." Maddie told him, pointing over to the woman who still hadn't stopped screaming.

He looked confused. "You said she was fine."

"She is, but we need her to stop screaming and tell us what happened." She pointed out.

Johnny gaped at her. "What? No cool action for me?"

"No." She told him simply. "You have a thing to do."

Maddie walked away to one of the ambulances, and Sue looked at her brother strangely. "What was that about?" She asked him.

Johnny, however, just glared at his sister. "If I'd known you'd get to go with the guy with the hole in his chest, I'd have let you stay in bed."

* * *

**You all know what comes next...but it'll only come with reviews!**


	4. Chapter 4

There was one downside to Sue accompanying the young paramedic to the hospital. Sue, of course, was a compassionate person. The reason she did what she did by continuing to use her powers was so that she could do some good in the world. She wouldn't admit it out loud, but there was a compulsion to stay near to someone when they were in trouble. Even if it was very little, she liked to know that if she could do something, she would do it. Right now, it was truly very little she could do, but she was doing it without question, and certainly without authority.

Becky had been taken into the OR with Mr. Pollard's body. It wasn't safe to remove her hand from his chest until the surgical team were fully prepared to control the inevitable bleeding and quickly work to save the man's life. At the moment, he hung on a delicate balance, and the removal of Becky's hand would throw that balance into chaos rather quickly. So, Sue had accompanied her, insisting that Becky was in a state of shock and that it would be good for her if someone was with her that wasn't about to delve their hands into the body she had been plugging. It was her stubbornness, more than the fact that she was right, which had lead to her being allowed into the OR room.

"How are you doing?" Sue asked her gently, giving her a confident smile.

Becky shrugged lightly, not wanting to move her hand around too much, but the movement still rustled the blue coverings that she had been made to wear. Sue had also been given a covering to wear, and had been made to pin her hear back out of the way despite the fact that she wouldn't be anywhere near the body cavity at the time of the operation. The deal was that when Becky left, Sue went with her.

"My hand is getting a little numb, but I'm okay. I'm good." She confirmed. Her eyes drifted for a moment, not wanting to look at sight of her hand in a wound, and instead she focused on the bustling of the room around her. Everywhere, nurses and doctors were preparing surgical instruments. On Sue's other side, the anesthesiologist had already begun to ventilate Mr. Pollard by using a hand pump. "Is this okay?" Becky suddenly asked. "Me being in here like this?"

Sue nodded. "I spoke to Dr. Bishop a second ago." She assured her. "He said that once he starts operating, he'll have you remove your hand, and then you and I can leave."

Becky sighed in relief. "Good." She said with a hint of a smile. "I know how much medicine I know, and it's just enough to never be allowed into an OR like this."

"New job?" She realised.

Becky nodded. "My second week. I got out of school about a month ago."

Sue put a hand on the young girl's shoulder. "Don't worry, I'm pretty new to my job as well."

"You mean the superhero thing?" Becky asked.

Now, it was Sue's turn to nod. "It's a lot harder than people think." She informed her.

"Talk about on the job training, huh?"

Thinking back over her previous experiences with what they had done with their powers, the first being that with Victor, Sue couldn't help but agree. "Tell me about it." She half-laughed.

----

It had taken a while, but Mrs. Pollard had finally stopped screaming. About halfway to the hospital she had stopped her screaming fit and succumbed instead to noisy tears, but by the time the nurses had changed her blood covered clothes for a clean hospital gown, the crying had given way to complete silence. As she sat in the emergency room on one of the beds, Maddie and Johnny stood at her side, staring at her in a small wonder.

"It's weird." Johnny wondered aloud. "All that blood on her clothes and none of it was actually hers?"

Maddie nodded. "She's phsyically fine. It's just an acute-anxiety reaction."

"So, what, she's just in shock?"

"I'll say." Maddie half-sighed, stepping closer to the bedside. "Mrs. Pollard, can you tell us exactly what happened?"

Mrs. Pollard looked up at her, finally recognising that there were people beside her. "You mean, the shock part?" She asked. "It was shocking. I'm shocked. You tell my husband that when I get my hands on him, he's a dead man. A dead man! Do you hear me?"

"How, exactly, was your husband injured?" Maddie asked her for what felt like the millionth time now.

Before Mrs. Pollard could answer, someone came into the OR and called out for her. "MAY. May, are you in here?"

"I'm over here, you moron!" May called back.

Another man came over, dressed in the same war veteren clothing that Mr. Pollard had been wearing at the scene of the accident. He looked rather stressed out, and was jittery as he came closer to May. "How-how's James doing?" He asked nervously.

May's eyes narrowed at him. "How do you think he's doing, Paul? He's bleeding all over the place! The girl in the ambulance put her hand inside of him!"

"What are you yelling at me for?" He asked her defensively.

"Because!" She shouted back. "Beacuse you and James are idiots. Playing like children!"

Paul rolled his eyes. "We don't play, we re-enact." He corrected.

"You play." May insisted. "You put on your costumes, you build your stupid toys, and you play."

"We re-enact." He insisted for a further time.

"Nobody re-enacts World War II, you moron!" May screamed at him.

To stop the shouting disturbing other patients, Maddie stepped in between them. "Sir, do you know how Mr. Pollard was injured?" She asked him.

"You want to know what happened?" May said from Maddie's other side. "What happened was that my husband and his moron best friend decided to build some kind of big gun."

"Yeah," Paul said, rather proudly considering the situation. "An exact replica of the finest allied anti-tank weapon of World War II. The M9A1 Bazooka."

"So, they put on their stupid costumes, go out into the back yard, and try to shoot the thing." May complained further.

"Sounds cool." Johnny nodded, liking the idea of explosives coming into hand here. Maddie glared at him, and his appreciation for the subject instantly dropped.

"I'm the gunner, and James is the loader." Paul explained. "We followed the specifications exactly. You should see it. It's a 60mm, one and a half-pound rocket. It's a beauty."

"It didn't work!" May pointed out. "So, my idiot of a husband has to go and stand in front of it and see what's wrong, and that's when the thing starts working."

Johnny's appreciation for the weaponry disappeared without a doubt at that statement. He paled completely. "He shot himself with a bazooka?"

"Yeah!" May cried.

Johnny turned to Paul, horrified. "He shot himself with a bazooka?!" Paul nodded rather nervously. "Was there an explosion?"

"Johnny?" Maddie asked, stepping closer to him, but in retaliation, Johnny stepped closer to Paul.

"Was there an explosion?" He asked, this time his voice rising.

"No, why?" Paul said, frowning in confusion. Johnny ran his hands over his face, composing himself as a terrifying realisation settled over Paul. "Oh, crap."

Johnny took in a deep breath, and turned to Maddie. "What floor is that operation going ahead on?"

"Fourth, why?"

"There wasn't an explosion." He said simply, running off in the direction of the fourth floor without turning back.

----

Up on the OR floor, everything had been prepared. Each passing minute was filling everyone with more relief that things would be over soon; Becky would be able to take out her hand and go home, as would Sue, who was desperately wanting to get back to her bed like the guys had promised her she'd be able to. All of the bribes about going shopping and breakfast in bed the next morning were starting to sound really good to her now.

"Okay, everyone." Dr. Bishop announced, getting everyone's attention. "I'm going to do a thoracotomy, and Rebecca is going to pull her hand out. Dr. Gates, if you could clamp the bleeder when we have more exposure...Ready?"

Becky nodded. "More than ready."

"Scalpal." Dr. Bishop requested, and a nurse passed it to him. "On the count of three. One...two..."

Just as he placed the scalpal against the skin, the door was all but slammed open, and a breathless Johnny skidded into the room. He gripped into the doorway to stop himself falling into the room completely. "Dr. Bishop, can I have a word with you?" He asked, careful to avoid his sister's eyes. Sue had some kind of weird power whereby she would know exactly what was going on if he caught her eye.

Dr. Bishop looked up at Johnny in mild annoyance. "Mr. Storm, you are not qualified to be on this floor."

"Neither is my sister, but she's still here." He pointed out.

"I am in surgery, Mr. Storm."

"Trust me, you want to talk to me." Johnny told him.

Sue frowned at her brother, wondering what was going on. Surely it had something to do with why this operation couldn't happen, but that would mean it had to be something serious, right? Dr. Bishop approached him, making sure that he kept his voice low enough so that no one else in the room could hear.

"Human Torch or not, if you interrupt me in my OR it had better be got a damn good reason." He said in a low tone.

"Was it straight through?" Johnny asked.

"What?"

"The wound on that man. Was it through and through?" Johnny repeated.

"No, just an injury, no exit. Why?"

Their voices dropped to hushed tones, so that there was no chance of hearing them. All the while, Sue kept her eyes trained on the pair, confusion reigning over them all whilst she tried to catch her brother's eye. What did he know? Eventually, Dr. Bishop turned back to them, looking at Becky as he spoke calmly to her.

"Rebecca."

"Yes?"

"What do you feel inside of Mr. Pollard?"

Becky frowned at the question. "What do you mean?"

"Is your hand touching anything hard?"

"Hard?"

He nodded. "Like metal?"

"Umm...I don't know." She started to move her hand, but Dr. Bishop's eeirily calm voice stopped her.

"Don't move your hand, just tell me what you feel." He told her.

"Johnny, what's going on?" Sue asked, but he wouldn't answer her.

"Rebecca?" Dr. Bishop asked again.

"Yeah..." She confirmed. "My fingertips are touching something...kinda hard."

"What's wrong?" Sue asked again, but she got no answer from the two men in the doorway.

"Rebeca, I don't want you to move." Dr. Bishop instructed her. "Not your hand, not your body. Not an inch."

Becky frowned even harder. "You're starting to scare me." She admitted quietly.

"Don't be scared. Everything is going to be fine." He assured her, his voice still on the casual calm that it had been since he started speaking to her. "Ms. Storm, could you..." He motioned for her to join him and Johnny, and she did so, her confusion still growing. When he reached them, the hushed tones started again. "I want you to leave this room with your brother. At the end of the hall, there is a nurse station, and I want you to tell the charge nurse that we have a Code Black." He instructed her.

"Code Black?" She questioned.

"Code Black." He confirmed. "Tell him that I am sure, and then tell him to call the bomb squad."


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5:**

With the Code Black announced, the medical team had been forced to evacuate the room. However, since the need to operate was still drastic, and each passing moment making it more dangerous with less chance of Mr. Pollard pulling through, they had only evacuated as far as down the hall, waiting by the elevator. Sue and Johnny stood among them, leaning with their backs against the wall. Johnny folded his arms over his chest and shook his head.

"Can you imagine being her right now?" He asked aloud. "What did she stick her hand in there for anyway?"

Sue gave him a look. "Give her a break, Johnny. She was trying to save his life."

"And now she might die because of it." He pointed out.

She shook her head. "No one's going to die."

Before Johnny could bring up the finer points of what happened when a bomb exploded, something that he had a lot of experience in considering he now set things on fire and controlled large blasts for a living, Dr. Bishop came out of the operating theatre and approached the group. One of the medical team stepped forwards. "What happens now?"

"I go back inside with Rebecca and wait for the bomb squad." He said simply. "The rest of you leave. You all leave."

There was a short pause, before everyone turned to climb into the elevator. Johnny was about to step into it as well when he realised that he was alone, and he turned back to his sister, who was still in place against the wall, having not moved a single inch. "Sue?"

"You should go." Dr. Bishop told her.

"If anything goes wrong when the bomb squad gets here, I can contain the blast so that no one gets hurt." She reminded the doctor, who debated this for a moment, and then nodded.

"Okay."

Johnny looked at her, shaking his head. "Sue, you've got to be kidding me..."

"I can help." She pointed out to him.

Johnny flung his arm in the direction of the room that Dr. Bishop was heading back into. "There's a bomb in that guy's chest!"

"I'm staying." Sue said stubbornly.

Johnny sighed, his arm falling back to his side as he watched her for a moment. "You had a feeling..." He said very quietly, finally attracting her gaze.

"I'm staying, Johnny." She told him, her own voice lowering to softer tones. "You go."

"But you thought you were going to die today..."

Sue let out a laugh, trying to sound convincing, but inside, she found that she didn't need reminding of the doomed feeling that she still felt. However, the laugh was too false, and neither of them were convinced by it. "Don't be silly, Johnny." She told him. "I've contained explosions before."

"You can't be serious." He shook his head.

"Go, I'll be fine."

He didn't move, though.

"Go."

----

When Johnny arrived down in the waiting room, things appeared more chaotic than he expected them to be. In fact, it seemed almost out of place. Downstairs, in the safer area, people were rushing around, trying to collect piece of portable equipment, helping to transfer less critical patients to other hospitals, and waiting for the final relative to return from the bathroom so that they could leave. However, it was a big contrast to the fact that upstairs, where the bomb was, it was just Sue in a quiet, empty corridor.

As he expected, with Sue and himself having been upstairs, Ben and Reed were still there, clearly with no intention to leave without the other two. Johnny approached them, noticing instantly that Reed was pacing, and Ben had managed to find a chair that could hold his new weight, and was staring at the magazine covers. Johnny threw himself down into the chair beside Ben, making the entire row creak as it had done the first time Ben had sat down.

"I don't like these places." Ben complained under his breath.

Johnny looked down at his hands as he leaned forwards in the seat. "You wouldn't like them a lot more if you were up where Susie is." He murmured.

"Why?"

Johnny looked up at Reed's question. Instantly, he realised his mistake. Reed didn't know about the bomb yet. And he certainly didn't know that Sue was up there within twenty feet of it; within blast range. Personally, he didn't want to be the one to tell him that, either. "...lots of blood." He covered quickly, and thankfully, convincingly. "Girl with her hand in a body...it's kinda gross."

Before Reed could ask any more questions, Maddie approached them, standing beside Reed with her hands on her hips. Exhaustion covered her face, and part of Johnny felt guilty for having kept her awake almost all of the previous night. However, that part of him was silenced out by the most part of him, which had thoroughly enjoyed last nights antics.

"What are you guys still doing here?" She asked. "Didn't you hear about the Code Black?"

Johnny nodded. "Yeah, I was there when it was called."

"What's a Code Black?" Ben asked.

Reed started reeling off possibilities, counting them on his fingers. "Code Red, Code Blue, Code White...I've never heard of a Code Black before."

"We're evacuating this part of the hospital." Maddie explained, as if that were all they needed to know.

Reed shook his head. "We can't leave."

"You have to." Maddie told them.

"I'm not leaving without Sue." Reed insisted.

"Well, where is she?" Maddie asked, looking around as if she were simply one of the people still occupying the bathrooms.

"She's upstairs. She's with the girl who had her hand in the body." Reed explained. Johnny and Maddie shared a look, one that was noticed by Reed. He knew that something was happening. He knew that they weren't telling him something. "Is that bad?" He asked them.

At that moment, the bomb squad entered the lobby, walking past the group with so much purpose, and so much determination, that they didn't cast a look to anyone other than the nurse they asked for directions.

"Yeah." Maddie nodded. "That's bad."

----

Up in the operating theatre, only four people filled the space. Dr. Bishop, Becky, Sue, and Dr. Milton, the anaesthesiologist who was keeping Mr. Pollard ventilated by hand now. All the other theatres on that floor had been evacuated, and the time had come to tell Becky what, exactly, was happening. Especially as she didn't see what could go wrong other than bleeding if she removed her hand. As Dr. Bishop explained about the explosive device, Becky managed to keep her cool, looking away from the both of them, but nodding along with what they were telling her.

"So..." She started, after they had finished explaining how Mr. Pollard had been injured. "I'm touching a bomb."

"Yes." Sue said softly, from her place at her side once more.

"Live. Unexploded. Ammunition." Becky continued, stating each word with more compressed panic underneath them.

"I'm afraid so." Mark told her.

"Which could go off at any time?"

"That's what I'm here for." Sue reassured her. "If anything goes wrong, which it shouldn't do, then I'll contain the blast and prevent anyone from being hurt."

Becky nodded, taking a deep breath and releasing it again. "Not the best feeling in the world."

"No, I guess not." Sue smiled sympathetically.

"And...he's still out?"

Mark nodded. "Yes."

"He can't feel my hand?"

"Thanks to Dr. Milton, he can't feel a thing right now." Becky looked uncertain for a moment, as she watched the steady rhythm of Dr. Milton's hands pumping air into Mr. Pollard's lungs. "Rebecca?"

"What if I just take my hand out really quickly?" She suggested.

Dr. Bishop sighed lightly as he considered this. "We'd have to ask the bomb squad when they arrive, but I'm guessing that would case the ammunition to shift and explode."

Becky looked in Sue's direction. "But, you said you could contain it..."

"I could," Sue confirmed, "but if I do that whilst the ammunition is still inside his body, it would kill him, and, potentially, you."

"Oh." Becky said simply.

"Rebecca." Dr. Bishop said softly, attracting the young girls attention. "Your hand is keeping him from bleeding out." He explained. "You are keeping this man alive."

She nodded, trying to appear confident. "Okay."

----

Downstairs, with more patient evacuations taking place, Johnny could stand it no longer. Once hearing that it was bad that Sue was upstairs with the bomb squad, Reed had become an insufferable worrier, dreading the worst. Each sound around him alerted him to the possibility that any second, he might hear an explosion, and if he did, then that meant that Sue might be...

"You've gotta get me up there." Johnny muttered side to Maddie, as Reed abandoned his pacing and collapsed into a nearby seat with his head in his hands.

"I can't, Johnny." Maddie told him.

"Please, that's my sister up there..."

"We've been told to evacuate." She reasoned.

"And yet, you're still here too." Johnny pointed out to her.

"Sue's my friend." She reasoned. "I need to know that she's okay."

"Then let me go up there and find out, so that you can go somewhere safer." Johnny attempted.

"Johnny..."

"There are two girls in my life that I care for more than anything." He told her, halting her attempts to move away as she looked up at his eyes. "My sister, and you. It's bad enough that Sue's up there and I can't do anything about it, but I don't want you in danger as well."

She looked up at him for a moment, forgetting the awkwardness about him leaving early that morning. She forgot any doubt that she'd ever had about him, and remembered only how he had remained faithful to her to the point where he generally ignored any other female attention now. Considering his previous lifestyle, that was quite an achievement for him, and being the person to change him was something she considered an achievement for herself. He wasn't the untouchable superhero that everyone assumed him to be; he had feelings. He cared about his family, he was loyal to his friends, both of which were qualities that she held above all, and he stood up for what he believed in. He was a fighter, and she was stood there, attempting to prevent him fighting.

"Okay," She surrendered, turning towards the stairs. "Let's go."

**Things are starting to get serious now...in the next chapter, it all kicks off!**


	6. Chapter 6

**Thank you so much for your feedback on this story! I wasn't sure whether the idea of this storyline was going to be liked, so I was kinda hesitant about it, but your reviews make me feel so much better! Love and cookies to you all! xxxxxxxxx**

The head of the bomb squad lead his team up to the now-evacuated fourth floor. Of course, apart from Sue. She still stood at one end of the corridor, away from the OR, waiting to see if there was anything she could do. When the bomb squad arrived, they paid no attention to her presence at all, and went straight past her to Dr. Bishop, who shook his hand.

"Dylan Morris." The bomb squad head introduced himself.

"Dr. Mark Bishop."

"Are you in charge up here?" Dylan asked.

Dr. Bishop nodded. "Yes, I am."

"Everyone evacuated?"

He nodded again. "Yes, everyone here is now so on a voluntary basis."

"Right, let's see what we're working with."

And with that simple, and brief, introduction, the team and Dr. Bishop headed into another OR, which had been evacuated also, and left Sue alone in the corridor.

----

Inside the OR, Becky was now alone in the room, save for the motionless body of Mr. Pollard, and Dr. Milton, the anaesthesiologist. All she knew was that the bomb squad had been called, and that the doctors were told to evacuate. Fear was starting to consume her, but the fact that she wasn't completely alone eased this somewhat. There was no conversation in the room, but plenty of silence to fill the walls. However, more than twenty minutes after everyone had left, Dr. Milton finally spoke.

"Pink mist." He said cryptically.

Becky turned her head to him. "Excuse me?"

"That's what the bomb squad calls you when you blow up." He explained quietly, ignoring the fact that Becky began to look even more scared. "Pink mist." He repeated. "I read that somewhere. Bomb goes off, and...anyone in range just...explodes into a billion pieces. You're liquid. There's nothing left, just these flecks of human flesh and blood. Pink mist. Sometimes, they don't even find a finger. One minute you're a person, the next...you're bloody rain." He seemed to brood on that thought for a moment, and then he looked at the ventilation pump he was holding. He held it out to Becky. "Here, take this."

"What?" She asked.

"Go ahead." He assured her. She took the bag in her free hand, and followed his instructions on how to give even, regular pumps to simulate the breathing. "That's it...you're doing great." He told her, as he stood up, and started to back away.

"Wait, where are you going?" Becky asked him, panic rising within her.

"I can't stay here." He told her.

"_What_?!"

"Look...I've got kids." He explained. "I've got three kids at home."

Becky almost felt her heart stop. He thought they were going to die in there. "Don't leave me here on my own."

"You're doing great." He assured her. "Just keep that pumping, okay?"

"Don't go." She begged him.

"I've got kids." He repeated, turning away and exiting quickly so that she couldn't beg him another time.

The door came to a quiet close behind him, and Becky stared at it blankly. Her hand was still plugging a body, with her previously free hand now keeping the man on the table breathing.

She was alone.

----

"Sue!"

Sue had been alone in the hall for ten minutes when she heard her brothers voice calling out to her in a loud whisper from down the hall. She turned from where she stood facing an empty corridor. "Johnny, what are you doing up here?" She asked him.

"Maddie got me up here." He explained, checking over her shoulder that there was no one here that could send him back downstairs. "What's going on, what's happening?"

Sue motioned to the other occupied OR. "The doctor's in there with the bomb squad."

"Are you okay?" He asked her.

"_Me_?"

"Look, Reed's driving me nuts downstairs worrying about you." He admitted. "He wants to know that you're okay."

"Yeah, I'm fine." She assured him.

"Great."

In the tiny silence, Sue's lips formed a gentle smile, rather impressed at what Johnny had told her. "He's really that worried?"

Johnny nodded. "It's _you_, Sue." He pointed out. "Of course he's worried. He's pacing a hole in the floor down there."

"Oh...right." Sue said simply, looking down at the floor with a touched smile on her lips.

Johnny rolled his eyes, unable to comprehend how the pair of them could be in the most extreme danger, yet as soon as they knew that the other was worried about them, they could stop for a moment and be pleased with that. "So, how are they going to go about taking that bomb out without hurting the girl and the guy?" Johnny asked.

"I think that's where I come in." Sue mused. "Dr. Bishop mentioned earlier that it would help if when the bomb is out of the body, I could contain it to prevent an explosion." Johnny nodded, only half-interested as he wandered down the corridor, looking through the small window in the door of the OR. "Johnny, you're supposed to stay away from there!" Sue hissed down the corridor, not wanting to raise her voice and alert the others.

"Why?" He asked, looking over his shoulder.

"We can't go in without the bomb squad."

"Wait a sec..." Johnny asked, as his eyes drifted back to the room.

"Get away from there!" Sue told him.

"Is it me, or is she shaking?" Johnny asked.

Sue's eyes widened, and she rushed over to Johnny's side so that she, too, could look through the door. "What?"

"She's shaking." He confirmed.

She looked through the small window, seeing what her brother had seen, and a look of shock wiped over her face. "Oh my God. Is she keeping him ventilated herself?"

"What happened to the other guy?" Johnny asked.

Sue opened the door a fraction, and leant in. "Becky...Becky, where's Dr. Milton?" She asked her gently.

"He left." Becky choked out, close to tears now. "He has kids. He didn't want to die."

Sue felt her own heart racing. She'd been just down the hall and she hadn't seen him leave. "Rebecca..."

Becky swallowed the lump in her throat and tried to speak calmly. "I think I'm going to take my hand out now."

Sue looked at Johnny sharply. "Johnny, go and get help." She said quickly.

"She can't take her hand out..."

"Go and get the others, _now_!" She told him.

----

"Hey!" Johnny announced himself as he ran into the other OR that Sue had pointed out to him.

As he had done before, he was met with stern stares just for his presence. "You can't be up here." Dr. Bishop told him.

"Be that as it may, this girl wants to take her hand out." Johnny explained, as the bomb squad stood up straight and prepared themselves. "You gotta get in there and stop her or something."

----

"I think I'm going to take it out now." Becky repeated, once Johnny had left.

Sue, who had stepped into the room fully, was back at Becky's side. "Becky, it's okay."

"No. _No_." She shook her head.

"We're almost to the finish line now, you can do this. You're doing great." Sue assured her.

"I just want to take it out and _be done with it_!" She said emotionally.

"Where's Dr. Milton?" Dr. Bishop demanded as he entered the room.

"He left." Sue explained briefly before turning back to Becky.

Behind Dr. Bishop, Dylan, the head of the bomb squad, and Johnny stepped into the room as well. "What?"

"He didn't want to die." Becky cried. "And neither do I, so I'm just going to take my hand out..."

"Rebecca, it won't be much longer." Dr. Bishop assured her. "Remember, you're keeping him from bleeding out. You're keeping him _alive_."

"_No_!" She shouted, tears now streaming down her face. "I am _twenty-two _years old. I shouldn't even _be _here. This is some kind of mistake!"

Dylan turned to Dr. Bishop. "Alright, she's panicking, we need to clear the room."

"I'm not going anywhere." Sue insisted before they even asked her to leave.

"Miss Storm. Out." Dr. Bishop ordered her.

"I'm not leaving her when she's this scared." Sue said, shaking her head.

Suddenly, all hell broke loose. People started talking over each other, and the increase of noise rose the panic to a catastrophic level.

"No, it has to come out, it has to come out!"

"Mr. Storm, go downstairs."

"_You _go downstairs!"

"Becky, it's alright. Look at me, you can do this."

"Rebecca, calm down. You need to relax."

"_No_."

"Rebecca."

"Becky, you can do this."

"No, it needs to come out."

"No, you need to keep it there, just a while longer."

"I have to! I _have _to!"

And with that. She did.

She pulled her hand out fast, and everyone fell to the ground instinctively, covering their head with their hands. Sue remained standing, watching as Becky ran towards the door, opening it. Even after the girl had left, Sue remained staring at the bloody handprint that Becky's hand had left on the wall, just beneath the light switches.

There was no explosion.

With the absence of an explosion, everyone started to get to their feet. Johnny was the first up, looking at Sue in confusion, but was horrified to see why she was still standing there. He looked at the arm that was extended before her, hoping that he'd be able to follow it down to her hand, but at her wrist it seemed to vanish, and it wasn't because of her invisibility. Instead, her wrist was unseen because it was her hand that now plugged Mr. Pollard's body.

He looked back up to her face, looking at the fear that was starting to settle on her. Instinct, clearly, had taken over, and it was only now that she realised what she had done. The minute Johnny stepped towards her, she threw a force field around both her and Mr. Pollard, encasing them from the rest of the room.

"_Susie_..." Johnny whispered in disbelief.

"Oh god...what have I done?" She said, completely shocked at her own actions.

Dylan got to his feet properly. "Just stay where you are." He ordered them. "Nobody move. Stay _exactly _where you are."

Sue bit her lip. "What did I do?" She asked herself. "What did I do?"

**What did she do? Something incredibly stupid, that's what. So, what's dear Reed going to think about this? Will he save the day? Will he even find out? Will Sammy follow the original storyline and let Sue live through this ordeal, or will she change her mind at the last minute and have her shatter into a million pieces? Let me know what you think in your reviews! xzxxx**


	7. Chapter 7

Downstairs in the lobby, panic had started to rise again. Of course, with so many people evacuated, the panic was nothing more than the rising gossip of the remaining hospital staff. It didn't escape the notice of Ben and Reed though, who looked up expectantly as Maddie approached them. Reed got up, desperate to know what was going on up there. He was worried about Sue, anyone could see that, but his desperation to know that she was okay ran deeper than mere concern.

"What's going on?" He asked as Maddie came near them, exhaustion written all over her face.

"Something's happened up there." She admitted to them.

"What?" Ben asked.

"Is Sue okay?" Reed asked over the top of him.

"I don't know." Maddie admitted, watching the hope drop from Reed's face. "All I know is that the paramedic, Becky? She's missing."

Reed frowned. If she was gone, who was holding the bomb in place?

----

"You do realise how stupid that was?" Dylan prompted, as he placed a flack jacket around Sue's chest. Johnny was already wearing a protective jacket, and was standing at the place where the anaesthesiologist was previously standing at Mr. Pollard's head.

"It was, Sue. _Incredibly _stupid." Johnny backed him up.

Sue turned her head to her brother. "Okay, do you know when you don't need to be made fun of? When you've got your hand on a bomb, and a stranger is velcro-ing a flack jacket to your boobs." She pointed out to him.

Johnny nodded. "Okay."

She kept her eyes on him, and he could see the vulnerability that had crept into them. "_I had a feeling_." She whispered to him. Johnny remembered the conversation he had with her that morning, and looked rather shaken.

"What's that?" Dylan asked.

"Nothing." Sue covered up.

But it wasn't nothing. She'd had a feeling that she was going to die that day.

Dr. Bishop came back into the room, looking directly at Johnny with the same irritation that he had done every time he had seen him. "Okay it's time for you to go now." He insisted.

Johnny shook his head. "No, I'm staying."

"There's nothing more you can do up here." Dr. Bishop told him.

"She's my sister, I'm not leaving her up here." Johnny said. "Her boyfriend would kill me."

"He's _not _my boyfriend." Sue jumped in quickly, realising that he was talking about Reed.

At that, Johnny turned around to her. "If I go downstairs without you, Reed's going to kill me, and then when I get to wherever you go when you die, I'll meet Mom and Dad, and they're gonna kick my as for the rest of _eternity _for leaving you like this."

Sue looked at him sympathetically. "Johnny, it's not safe up here for you anymore." She told him.

"Reed's going to kill me if I leave you up here and he knows that you've got your hand on a bomb--"

"Then don't tell him." She said quietly. There was a short silence, where Johnny tried to form the words to protest, but Sue raised her head, looking more emotional than she had done through this entire ordeal. "Don't tell him that it's me up here, Johnny. Don't do that to him. Don't tell him, _please_, just don't tell him."

Johnny returned her emotional gaze, but sighed heavily. "What am I supposed to tell him?"

"Anything." She said. "Just don't tell him that it's me up here."

"But he _loves _you, Sue." Johnny told her softly.

Sue swallowed a large lump in her throat, fighting hard against the burning tears that were building up. "If you _really _believe that, then you won't tell him I'm up here." She pointed out to him. "If you really believe that he loves me, you won't tell him what's happening up here."

Johnny nodded, unconvinced but agreeing all the same. "Okay." He whispered.

"I'll be okay." She assured him.

Johnny nodded, unsure of what else needed saying, and turned away, leaving the room and undoing the flack jacket as he did, leaving it abandoned in the corridor. Sue watched him leave, and when she was sure that he wasn't going to come back, she took a deep breath, composing herself from what had been a conversation she hadn't planned on having.

"So," She announced into the quiet, almost empty room. "You have a plan, right?"

----

The moment Johnny appeared back downstairs, he was all but grabbed to one side by the others. Maddie was the first to make her demands. "You really do have to leave now, this area has been fully evacuated." She told him.

"And again, _you're _still here." He pointed out.

"I am a _doctor_. I _have _to be here, you don't."

He nodded. "Yes, I do."

Frowning at his saddened expression, Reed stepped forward.

"Why, what's going on?" Maddie asked him.

"Nothing." Johnny said.

"What do _you _know that the rest of us don't?" Maddie pried further.

"Johnny, where's Sue?" Reed demanded.

"She's upstairs." Johnny told him. "Hanging out in the hall in case the bomb squad need her to contain the blast."

Reed looked confused, banishing all hopes for Johnny that he had believed the story. "But...the girl with the bomb...she's gone." He pointed out. "We just heard the Chief of Surgery talking about it."

"Yes, she has." Johnny confirmed, realising that he couldn't lie about that.

"So, who's holding up the bomb?" Reed asked.

Johnny and Maddie shared a look, and he could see the dawning expression on his girlfriend's face as she realised what was really happening up there. "Someone else." Johnny said, not taking his eyes away from Maddie.

Before Reed could ask any more questions, the Chief of Surgery approached them. "Dr. Richards?"

"Yes?" He asked, turning to the Chief.

"As you are refusing to evacuate the premises, might I borrow your opinion on something?"

Reed nodded. "Of course."

As the Chief and Reed left, and Ben went off grumbling about more coffee, Maddie rounded on Johnny incredulously. "_Sue's _holding the bomb?"

"Don't say anything to Reed." Johnny said quietly.

"And she's up there on her own?"

He nodded. "I tried to stay, but she told me to come back down."

"What's happening up there?" Maddie asked him.

He shrugged. "I told you everything else I know." He assured her. "They want her to contain the blast still, but until it comes out, she's the one holding the bomb up."

Maddie watched as Johnny's face washed over with panic, and she could see from the clenched fist that hung at his side that he felt the temptation to hit the wall, but she took hold of his hand, holding it between her own. "Johnny...it's going to be okay."

"You don't know that." He told her quietly.

She shrugged. "It's just what you say." She admitted powerlessly.

"I know." He said, hugging her against him. He allowed himself to draw some of her strength for his own before he turned back and headed towards the stairs again.

"Where are you going?" He called after her.

He looked at her with helpless eyes, the sort of look you'd never expect from the Human Torch. "She's my sister, Maddie. I've gotta do _something_."

----

Inside the Chief's office, Reed crammed in with the Chief and the head of the bomb squad, Dylan Morris. When he was introduced to the head of the bomb squad, he found that the man gave him an almost knowing, sympathetic look, which worried him somewhat, but he focused his attention on the task at hand.

"Are these the blueprints for the whole hospital?" Reed asked, looking at the design paper before him.

"Yes, the medical staff are ready, and the patient is in a stable condition." He confirmed.

"My team is in place." Dylan added. "We can have the bomb out in under ten minutes if we're not interrupted again."

"Yes, but we have one more problem." The Chief explained, just as Reed also realised what this was about.

"Of course." He realised.

"What?" Dylan asked.

"In the OR they put patients under a general anaesthesia, which would involve a steady flow of oxygen." Reed explained to him.

"Can't you just turn off the oxygen in this OR?" Dylan asked.

"I can, and I have." The Chief nodded.

"Then, what's the problem?"

"This is the OR floor's main oxygen line." The Chief said, indicating a single line and following it with his finger. "And it runs..."

Reed sighed. "...right underneath."


	8. Chapter 8

When Dylan arrived back upstairs, he mimicked the same whispering position in the doorway as Johnny had done with Dr. Bishop a few hours prior. However, this time, Sue was in no position to be wandering over. Her hand was plugging a body. She was touching a person's internal organs. This wasn't the day in bed she'd hoped for.

"_Stop it_." She told them, when the whispering became too much for her.

"What?" Dylan asked her, stepped into the room fully.

"The two of you are whispering like I'm going to freak out at any second." She pointed out to them. "I mean, I'm a superhero now, I see weird stuff every day. I'm not going to freak out, so whatever it is, just tell me straight out."

Straightening fully, Dr. Bishop looked at her. "The main oxygen line runs directly underneath this room." He told her.

"Okay." Sue nodded, but they looked at her doubtfully. "_Not _okay. Well?" There was more silence. "I need one of you to tell me what that means. I think I know what it means, but I'm not going to trust my judgement because I'm a bit glass-half-empty today."

"That would depend on what you thought." Dylan said from the doorway.

"I think it means that if the bomb were to explode and I couldn't contain it while we're over the oxygen line, the whole hospital could blow up." Sue predicted, the mere idea of it panicking her. "And that's just _crazy_, right?"

But the silence told her just how far from crazy it was.

"Oh _god_." She muttered.

"It's okay." Dylan assured her. "All it means is that we have to move."

"Move?" Dr. Bishop questioned.

Dylan nodded. "We have to move, and now, because I don't want to spend another second above the oxygen line."

"Wait a second," Sue slowed them down. "I can't move my fingers because we can't shift the bomb, and now you want to roll the _entire lot _out of here?" She asked them.

"It's our safest option." Dylan told her.

"So, we move. Not a problem. We can do this." Dr. Bishop said, forcing confidence into the room. He looked at Sue, who had closed her eyes, and seemed to be psyching herself up. "Are you handling this, Susan?" He asked her, using her first name for the first time that day.

She opened her eyes, nodding firmly. "I'm handling this."

----

"Great. You're doing great."

She didn't feel like she was doing great. She had her head stuck inside of a body, touching a bomb, and they were moving at minus twelve kilometres an hour down the hall.

"Can we go over this one more time?" She asked, wanting the plan clear in her head.

"The device is shaped like a rocket, about eight inches long." Dylan explained to her. "We're going to have everything ready in the other room. The medical team are going to be in place, my team is going to be in place, and then I'll ask you to take the hand that you have inside of Mr. Pollard, and wrap it around the device..."

"And pull it out." Sue finished for him.

"_Level_." He nodded. "You have to keep it level."

Sue nodded to herself, and as they passed the stairwell, Johnny appeared from seemingly nowhere. "_Whoa_, what's going on here?" He asked.

"You're meant to be downstairs." Sue pointed out.

"I second that." Dylan said.

"What's happening? What are you doing?" Johnny asked.

"We're moving further away from the oxygen line." Sue explained to him. "You know, in case something goes wrong."

"I distinctly remember you being told to _leave _by Dr. Bishop." Dylan told Johnny forcefully.

"And where is he?" Johnny challenged.

"He's getting the other room ready." Sue told him.

"Then he'll never know, will he." Johnny pointed out.

Dylan sighed, surrendering. "Right, but you stay over the other side of the hall."

Johnny nodded, stepping back so that he was almost touching the other side of the corridor, and followed the slow movements of the gurney.

"Talk to me." Sue asked him, after he stared silently at the part of her wrist that disappeared into the man's body. "Tell me something."

"What?" He asked her, shrugging.

"Johnny, I have my hand on a bomb, and to be completely honest, I'm starting to freak out now." She admitted to him. "Tell me something, _anything_."

Johnny nodded, racking his brains for something to take her mind of things. He needed something that was going to distract her, make her talk back to him, like...giving advice...

"Maddie told me that she loves me." He told her, instantly getting the attention from Sue that she'd asked for. "Last night. She thought I was sleeping but I heard her say it."

"Maddie loves you." Sue repeated simply.

"Yeah." Johnny nodded, before looking at Dylan. "Mind your own business." He warned him.

"Maddie _loves _you." Sue said again.

"Basically." Johnny confirmed.

"Well, are you going to say it back, or-?"

"Of course _not_." He told her quickly. "She didn't say it to _me_, she said it to...sleeping me."

"But do you love her?"

He was silent for a moment, thinking about the beautiful doctor he'd left downstairs to come see his sister. "Yeah." He nodded quietly.

"Then why don't you just tell her?" Sue challenged him.

He shrugged again, looking a little ashamed at himself. "Because I'm me, and I'm crap with emotions." He reminded her.

She gave him a sympathetic smile. "How's Reed?" She asked, almost hesitantly.

"He's going out of his mind." Johnny said truthfully.

Her eyes widened. "I _told _you--!"

"I didn't tell him." He assured her. "I told him you were waiting in the hall in case the blast needed containing."

Sue's eyes closed for a moment, and when she opened them again, they were filled with tears. "Don't let him worry, okay?"

"It's too late for that." He told her. "He's climbing the walls down there."

"Johnny, if I don't--"

"Don't you _dare _finish that sentence!" He warned her.

"If something goes wrong, I need you to tell him that I love him." She said, a single tear slipping onto her cheek.

"No, you're not going to die!" Johnny insisted firmly.

She gave him a sad smile. "I'll try not to."

He knew that was as close to a promise as she could give him, and shook his head, realising for a moment hat she'd just said. "I _knew _you loved him." He said, managing to give her a cheeky smile.

"Not _now_, Johnny." She said tiredly.

There was another silence, but in the age it seemed to last, they only travelled about two feet along the corridor. "You _had _to say you were going to die today." Johnny said softly.

She looked up at him, shrugging with her free arm. "I told you." She said simply.

Dylan shook his head, breaking up the sibling moment. "All right," He told Johnny. "You really have to go now."

Johnny, this time, didn't put up a fight. Instead, he stopped walking where he was, and watched as his sister moved away from him, inch by snail-pace inch. "Please don't die, sis." He asked after her.

She gave him a gentle nod in the direction of the stairs. "It's okay." She assured him. "Go."


	9. Chapter 9

"We're ready when you are."

_Ready_? She wasn't ready. She wasn't ready at all.

She'd had a feeling that she was going to die today.

She'd told Ben that she didn't want to get out of bed. Ben had told her that she had to go to the meeting with them because they were a team.

She'd told Johnny about the feeling. Johnny had stood on her bed, and forced her to go to the meeting with them.

Then she'd told Reed.

She hadn't _meant _to tell him. It was just a kind of spur-of-the-moment thing where she'd needed to say it to him. She wasn't sure why, but it was as if she knew he'd have some kind of answer for her - a reason why she didn't need to have a feeling.

He'd told her that he got them sometimes.

And that had comforted her, knowing that she wasn't the only one who woke up with a feeling. Of course, he hadn't told her that his felt like he was going to die that day, but he still woke up with a feeling that something, anything, was going to happen that day. A feeling that leaves you dreading it, and awaiting its arrival with such a sick anticipation that by midday, you're begging for it to happen just to get it over with. The waiting is so much worse.

Although, having her hand stuck inside of a living man's chest, touching a live explosive that could go off at any second if it moved in the slightest, and being told that she needed to remove it herself...that was slightly worse than waiting.

----

Johnny went back downstairs, finally arriving in the now almost deserted lobby. Walking away from Sue like that had felt awful - almost as if he were giving up on her, but he couldn't show that for her now. He couldn't show how worried he was, or how scared he was. He had to compose himself, go over to the others, and pretend that nothing was wrong. He had to pretend that it was someone else up there; someone else holding that bomb. Not his sister. Not the girl who, at eleven years old, raised him after their mothers death. Not the girl who, at nineteen years old, had nursed their father through his final days. Not the girl who, five minutes ago, had turned to him and asked him to tell Reed that she loved him if she didn't make it.

Reed, of course, was the first person to notice he was back. Any presence around them might be Sue's, in his mind. He was waiting for her to come down the stairs and tell him off for worrying about her so much. Then they'd go home, have a relaxing evening, and that would be it. It would all be over. No more bomb threat. No more hospital. Just home. That's all he wanted. Just home.

"What's happening up there?" He asked, as Johnny came back, and sat down in a vacant chair opposite him.

Johnny took a deep breath. "Everything's fine." He said falsely, careful not to catch Maddie's eye.

"Sue?" Reed enquired.

Johnny nodded, trying to convince himself as well. "She's okay. She's fine."

"How's..." Maddie began to ask, casting a careful look at Reed as she rephrased herself. "How's...the girl with the bomb?"

"Wait a second." Reed interrupting, realising Maddie's mistake instantly. "I thought the girl with the bomb left?"

As Reed's realisation hung in the air, Johnny bowed his head, supporting it with his hands. "She did." He confirmed.

"The only other woman up there was..." Silence fell over Reed as he realised what was really going on, what had been kept from him... "Oh, please _no_."

"It's Sue." Johnny confirmed helplessly. "The girl with the bomb is Sue."

Reed was still for a moment, contemplating what this meant, but when all he got were negative images of pain and corpses, he got to his feet, heading for the stairs. "I have to go up there."

"_No_!" Everyone called out at the same time, all grabbing hold of him in a different area to keep him steady.

"It's _Sue_!" He cried out. "I _have _to go up there!" He had to do something.

"That's not going to help anything." Maddie told him calmly.

"But-" Reed protested, while Ben held him fast.

"Look, I just talked to her and she was fine." Johnny tried to assure him.

"She's got her _hand _on a _bomb_!" Reed almost exploded.

"And she's _okay_!" Johnny shouted back, causing Reed to stop fighting against Ben. "They moved away from the oxygen line, and they're working right now to take that bomb out. Sue's gonna contain it so that even if the bomb goes off, no one will get hurt."

Falling into a calm surrender, Ben released Reed, who stood motionless as he stared at the flight of stairs that separated him and Sue. "I...I can't leave her up there on her own." He said softly, helplessly, even.

Johnny put his hand on his shoulder. "She'll be okay." He tried to assure him. "She _has _to be."

----

She'd had her hand inside of Mr. Pollard's body for a little over an hour now, and whilst it had been there, still, not moving, nothing to distract her, nothing for her to panic about generally, she'd been fine. Now, however, when she was told that it needed to come out, she was starting to get more than just a bit scared.

Her heart was thumping wildly in her chest. Her knees felt weak. Her head was reeling. The butterflies in her stomach had suddenly developed a mind of their own, and were beating against her insides, causing her to feel nauseous. In fact, the dizziness was starting to increase to the point where, had she not been in a position where movement was out of the question, she would have needed to sit down again just so that she could breathe; but there was only one thing that she could clearly focus on.

She still couldn't remember the last time that they kissed.

Reed.

She needed him. She was ashamed to admit that she was so desperate for him at that moment, but she knew in her heart that she couldn't wait around for the day when she became perfect enough for him to realise what he was missing when he chose science over her. God, she needed him right now.

"Okay, she can go."

She hadn't realised that things were going ahead until Dr. Bishop stepped away from her. Without her realising it, he had extended the wound by her hand so that it was large enough for her to remove the explosive. She snapped back into focus. "What?"

"Alright now, Susan." Dylan said, stepping near to her and speaking calmly. "Wrap your hand around the nose cone." She stared directly at him, but didn't take in a word he said. Tears formed in her eyes again. She didn't want to cry. She wanted to be strong...the only problem was that she couldn't find strength when she might be about to die. "Susan."

"Susan." Dr. Bishop also prompted.

"Johnny should get everything." She suddenly blurted out.

Dylan shook his head, understanding where she was coming from. "No, you listen to me-"

"You should make sure." She continued, as if she hadn't hear his interruption. "We have inheritance from our parents. The documents are in my room, in the nightstand. Make sure that he gets it all."

"Susan.."

"And there are photographs in there as well." She remembered. "Reed should have those. I know it seems small, but he should have them."

"Susan, look at me." Dr. Bishop said calmly.

However, their calm was not transferred to her. She shook her head firmly. "No, I can't. I _can't_. This is crazy." Both of them made to step towards her, and she responded by focusing her strength, the last shred she had left, and a protective force field separated her and Mr. Pollard from the others. "You should go. Both of you." She told them. "I can contain the blast and it won't hurt you, and it won't destroy anything, and I'll just--"

"No one's dying today, Susan." Dr. Bishop cut into her emotional plead.

"Susan, I want you to look at me. _Look at me_." Dylan told her. Finally, she did, only both saw the other through a shimmering invisible surface. Dylan lowered his voice and stepped right up to the force field. "I know that this is bad, and I know I'm the jerk that's been yelling at you all day, so I want you to pretend that I'm not me. Pretend I'm someone you like; your brother, one of your friends...whatever you need, but you _need _to _listen _to me."

Sue closed her eyes, looking down. She needed to pretend that it was someone she liked; someone she trusted...someone she'd listen to if they were standing there trying to assure her that she wasn't going to die.

_"I'm so scared."_ She admitted with her eyes still closed.

_"I know."_

The voice that replied to her was that of the image she had summoned. She knew that he wasn't really there, and that it was really Dylan speaking the words, but it was Reed's voice that replied to her comments.

_"I can't do this." _She continued, feeling the tear slip down her cheek.

_"You can do this." _He replied surely._ "I know you can."_

_"I'm not strong enough."_ The tear was followed by another. And another. And another.

_"You are."_ He continued. _"I'll all be over in a second. You can do this, Sue."_

He believed in her strength, so she had to as well.

_"Okay." _She said, her voice quiet, but containing as much certainty as his had.

_"Okay." _His voice whispered.

"I can do this." She psyched herself up as she opened her eyes again; the room and the real people speaking to her reappearing before her eyes.

She'd been told to imagine someone that she did like; and she'd chosen to imagine the one person that she loved. He was the first person that came into her head. He was _always _the first person on her mind, even if she hadn't wanted him to be. He'd been the only person to offer her any sort of comfort with the feeling she'd had that morning, even if he had crushed her feelings before, and now, when she was convinced that her feeling had been right, she was standing with her hand on a bomb, listening to the voice of the man that was telling that it was okay.

She'd told Johnny that she was going to be okay.

Dr. Bishop had told her that she was going to be okay.

Dylan, the head of New York's bomb squad, had told her that she was going to be okay.

But the only voice she had believed those words from, had been the one of Reed's that she'd imagined. She needed him there. She was grateful for Dr. Bishop standing beside her, coaching her through in a way that he seemed to know that she needed, but Reed would be doing so much more.

He'd be able to look into her eyes, give her that gentle smile he reserved only for her, and the fear would melt away into an insignificant puddle. He'd put his hand over her free one, gripping it ever so slightly, and the shaking that was threatening to endanger all of their lives would be ceased. He'd gently place his lips against the side of her head, just above her temple, and the way that his breath would tickle against her skin would reassure her that she was okay, and that she could do it.

It would make her believe, more than any words could, because he was the comfort on her mind, and somehow, he was with her all the time, no matter where she was or what she was doing.

Instead, she took deep breaths. It was supposed to be calming, but it wasn't because it made her heart race even more, preparing itself for what was about to happen. She gazed down at her hand, seeing where a white glove overlapped on her navy blue jumpsuit, a colour Reed had once told her suited her because of her eye colour, and she wished that the two could separate. That way, she could walk away without looking back. The red of Mr. Pollard's blood made her wonder whether her blood would be added to the room if she made a mistake. Would she bleed, or would she simply be evaporated on the spot by the force of the explosion?

Dylan, still standing across from her, came back into perfect view once her shimmering force field dropped. He kept his gaze trained on her for the entirety, make sure that at any moment, he could react to her movement. She moved her hand slightly, and a single whisper uttered from his lips.

"_Gently_."

Gentle. Gentle like the breezes the town had when it wasn't pouring with rain. Gentle like the way she would hold a newborn baby. Gentle like the way her voice had been three days ago when she had comforted a scared child who had lost his mother. Gentle, like the way Reed used to kiss her after spending an eternity gazing down at her.

Her eyes, streaming with tears, flickered from Dylan, back down to where her hand disappeared into the crevice of Mr. Pollard's injured chest. Her deep breaths were still making sure that her brain was functioning, but her body seemed to move of it's own accord. She wasn't sure what her other hand was doing. She wasn't sure whether she was still blinking. In fact, if she hadn't been so convinced by the emphasised rising and falling of her chest, she wouldn't have been sure if she was still breathing.

And then, she did it.

The minute her hand moved, she felt her mind hesitating, screaming out every word that she had never said, but should have. None of them formed on her tongue though. All she could do was breathe, very gently, when she started to slide the bomb out of the chest wound. Slowly. So slowly, she could almost imagine how loud Mr. Pollard's screams of pain would be had he been able to feel what was happening around him. So slowly, she thought that she could step out of her body and watch it in slow motion before going back to the situation.

So slowly, that she saw Reed's face in a thousand different places in her mind before the bomb was even halfway out of the wound.

----

Sue was the girl with the bomb.

Somewhere up on another floor, Sue had her hand on a bomb. Sue. Susan Storm. _His _Sue. The moment Reed thought this, he stopped himself, almost ashamed of calling her 'his'. She wasn't his, even if he was the closest man to her heart. She wasn't anyone's, yet he felt so strongly for her that she was the only person who belonged in his heart. He needed to tell her that.

If it wasn't too late.

He'd been there when the decision had been made to move down away from the oxygen line. If they'd stayed across the hall, the whole hospital could have blown up. Not that Reed would have minded of course. He'd already have died alongside her if Sue had been the bomb's victim. He could even understand the knowing look that the head of the bomb squad had given him in the Chief of Surgery's office. By then, Sue would have been touching the bomb, and he knew it. He knew it, and he wouldn't tell him.

He wanted to be with her. He wanted to be there to help her. To stop her getting scared. He'd look into her eyes, give her a gentle smile...the one that only she could bring to him. He'd put his hand over hers, the one that he knew wasn't encased inside of a chest near to a deadly explosive, and he'd grip it ever so slightly, gentle enough so that it wouldn't hurt her, or pass his own panic onto her, but strong enough for her to know that he was there. He'd kiss her on the side of the head, not on the lips, because then he'd want to kiss her forever, and that wouldn't help the situation. Instead, he'd kiss her on the side of the head, in the spot right above her temple, where he knew from many late-night study groups in M.I.T that it would instantly melt away any anxiety that was cooped up inside of her body.

He'd do whatever it took, just to make sure that she was okay.

----

Three-quarters out.

It was almost over.

That's when a tiny sob escaped her. It was almost over. She wanted so much to give into the hope that was starting to fill her, but knowing that it could still go wrong was enough to keep her rock steady, still scared that she was going to die.

She still had the feeling, even as she passed the black mass in her hand into that of Dylan's. She'd never had so much blood on her hands before, but then again, she'd never plugged a body cavity with her hand before. The sight of so much blood covering her made her feel sick.

There was a pleasant weight that seemed to leave her shoulders when she felt the added touch of Dylan's hands against the underside of the bomb. Instantly, she played her next part in the situation and encased the bomb in a protective force field. She waited for his silent confirmation that it was safe in his hands, before she stepped away. Instantly, her head pounded with the concentration it took to keep the force field intact. The added stress gave her such a headache that she was sure it hadn't been this strong since she had first contained Johnny's supernova.

"You did good." Dylan told her, as she gently brought her arm back into its natural position at her side, too numb from fear and shock of the situation to notice the additional ache in her body that had formed from keeping her arm in one position for too long. All she could feel was the pounding headache, and the succession of tears that were still falling down her cheeks.

Dylan started to move away from her, stepping backwards and turning so slowly, so gently, so professionally. How many bombs had he removed in a situation like this? Every day, almost, she worked to ensure that the city was safe, but he went to work every morning knowing that he could die no matter where he was, or what he was doing. How did he do it?

Her right hand was still raised over the body, the blood stained glove contrasting greatly against the Kevlar jacket, blue medical overalls, and the white of the surgical gloves. Her left hand was placed at the side of the body, but she didn't move it. She was so focused on not moving her right hand for the past hour, that she wasn't sure what had been happening with any other part of her body, but she was aware now that her whole being was shaking.

She quickly took a step backwards as soon as she felt able to move, and Dr. Bishop, and the remaining medical staff, began to work on stopping the bleeding of the man who had the whole hospital under an immediate evacuation.

Her eyes weren't focusing on Mr. Pollard as she watched Dylan continuing to remove the bomb from the room. He was at the door now, steadily walking out of the opening with even slow steps that had already taken him around thirty seconds to get to the door only a metre away. Even with Sue's force field around the bomb, he was taking all regular precautions.

When he was out of sight, she moved again, heading towards the door with a curiosity that had overcome her feeling. She followed Dylan, keeping a safe distance away, but still focusing all her attention on the force field bubble that protected the weapon. For a few seconds, she managed to keep it intact, but the pounding in her head and the stress of the last few hours crept up on her, and her vision started to blur. As nausea overtook her, she realised with a terrifying thought that Dylan's sharp intake of breath at the other end of the corridor meant her force field had dropped.

Then the bomb, and Dylan, just exploded. Right before her eyes.


	10. Chapter 10

Downstairs in the lobby, the sound of an explosion was heard. Doctors who had been crossing the lobby halted immediately, casting their heads upwards. Over in the corner of the lobby, an area that was usually home to worried family members, and that days situation was no different, the sound of the explosion hit deep into the veins of the three worried members of the Fantastic Four. The lights overhead rattled, but, on the whole, nothing drastic happened. However, all heads jerked upwards, all conversations halted mid-word, and all hearts pounded nervously.

"No..." Reed muttered under his breath, as million worst case scenarios present themselves in his mind. "_Sue_."

He got up from the chair he had all but collapsed in half-an-hour ago, and made to run towards the stairs, but Johnny grabbed him, pulling him backwards. "Reed, no--"

"Something's gone wrong, I _know _it has." Reed said emotionally, unable to ignore the strange feeling he had in his heart. The horrific pounding, filled with a sense of fear that he wasn't sure he'd ever felt before. With Johnny still holding his arm, preventing him from escaping upstairs to where Sue was, Reed turned his head to him.

Johnny was somewhat startled by the different emotions he could see in his team-mate's eyes. Whilst it was no secret to anyone that he loved Sue, Johnny never really saw anything other than a longing look in her direction from Reed to prove that. Now, however, he could see more than a longing look as she left the room, more than a kinder tone of voice, more than a brush of a hand against hers...he was seeing pure, undeterred love. There was a fear in Reed's eyes, a terror that for whatever reason, Sue wasn't okay; an obvious pain that came from knowing there was the slightest reason to doubt her safety. "She said she'd be okay--" Johnny tried to convince him, wishing that the words would comfort him as well. Yes, she had said she'd be okay, but she'd also say that nothing would go wrong...and something had clearly gone wrong.

"If she'd contained the blast we wouldn't have heard it down here." Reed pointed out in a small, yet pained voice.

Of course, Reed was right. He'd done enough research into their powers to know enough about Sue's abilities as she did. Hours spent in the lab together had proven that. If anything, Reed probably knew more than she did. He certainly knew more than Johnny or Ben did about their conditions. But, if he was right, that meant bad things. If Sue hadn't contained the blast, that meant she was close to the explosion that had caused several lights on the ground floor lobby to flicker and die for a second before the back-up generator kicked in.

All of this, combined with the pleading in Reed's eyes caused Johnny's grip on his arm to loosen. Reed's hesitance might have broken Sue's heart before, but there was no hesitance from the scientist-turned-superhero now. Johnny remembered the heartbroken look in Sue's eyes that morning when she told him how she thought Reed had chosen his love of science over her, and it was clear now that this wasn't the case. There was no urgent equation pushing thoughts of Sue to the background. In fact, Johnny would have been willing to bet that Reed couldn't concentrate long enough to give an accurate definition of the word 'equation', had he been in more of a humorous mood. Reed had broken Sue's heart before, but even Johnny, her protective brother, couldn't stand in the way of his need to go to her.

All he could do was remain motionless in the hospital lobby as Reed felt his slackened grip and struggled free of his grasp. As Reed headed quickly towards the same stairs Johnny had been disappearing up and down all day, Maddie came and stood beside Johnny, putting her hand on his upper arm. He looked down at her, broken out of his trance where all he could see where horrific scenarios that might take place if Sue hadn't contained the blast, and sighed heavily, shaking his head. He put his arms around Maddie, bringing her into a close hug.

He needed to feel something other than helplessness.

----

Upstairs on the operating floor, the force of the explosion had all but devastated the corridor. When Reed looked at the far end of the corridor he could see that the large window at the end had been smashed with the force, yet the broken white blind, stained black from the blast, was still hanging on one side. Black smoke residue still hung in the air, tainting the previously brilliant white hospital corridor, but even the presence of smoke couldn't hide the rubble that littered the ground where a portion of a wall corner had been partially demolished. With a fearful lump in his throat, Reed realised that this must have been where the bomb had exploded.

He took a few hesitant steps into the corridor from the stairwell, afraid of what sight might meet him further up the corridor. The entire hall was dark, where all the light bulbs had been smashed with ease, and amid the rubble from the destroyed wall, there was loose scraps of paper, some still with corners that were burning or, at least, glowing from the embers that rested on them. In fact, the only light that was entering the hall came from the smashed window at the end of the corridor, which served only to cast an eerie glow into the corridor.

"Storm!"

The call that sounded into the corridor echoed from one of the side rooms, presumable the OR that the medical team had moved to once it had been revealed they were over the oxygen line. Reed frowned. It had sounded like the voice of the doctor they had met at the scene of the accident that morning. He'd heard that this was the doctor who was up with Sue, and alarm bells started ringing inside his mind as he stepped towards the room. Why had he been calling out for Sue? Surely if Sue had been okay, she'd be with him?

"Storm!" The voice continued. "Susan...can you hear me?"

There no answering call to the doctor's shouts, which only heightened Reed's concern, the adrenaline burning through him. With a partial hope that he might still hear Sue's voice assuring whoever was listening that she was fine, he rushed into the open doorway, leaning against one side of it as he looked in. The room was filled with blue and red, the hospital scrubs contrasting greatly against the blood which covered them, and the lack of bright blonde that made up Sue's hair colour instantly alerted him. The medical team were the only people in the room, and even when they all looked up, Sue wasn't disguised as one of them. No, he'd have recognised her eyes in a heartbeat.

Sue wasn't in the room.

"Where's Sue?" Reed demanded, out of breath a little, but from the rapid beating of his heart rather than his run up the stairs.

"Isn't she out there?" The doctor asked, bringing his eyes away from his patient so that he could see Reed in the doorway. His presence didn't seem to alarm him.

Did that mean she'd been outside? Where was she now? Reed turned his head where he leant, looking back into the corridor again, which was starting to resemble something from a horror film in his mind. "Where is she?" He demanded again, this time louder, shocking himself with the determination in his voice.

"She followed the bomb squad to keep up the protection, and then the explosion hit." The doctor explained, before returning his attention to the patient that he couldn't leave, not even to assure another person's safety.

Reed, however, could leave the patient. He might have been a doctor, but he wasn't a medical doctor. He didn't need to ensure the survival of the man on the table, as his only purpose on that floor of the hospital was to make sure that Sue was okay. Without waiting for another moment, he left the doorway, looking more closely around him. When he couldn't see anything, fear pulsed through him.

Pink mist. The two words formed in his head as he threw aside collapsed furniture in case she had been thrown beneath it. He'd read that in an article once. He'd read that when you exploded, they called you 'pink mist'. A brief, terrifying thought rushed over him, adding to the millions he already had inside his head, and he was frightened she might have been completely eradicated; scared that there wouldn't be anything left to find. Surely, that couldn't have been her fate. Not Sue. Not her. _Anyone _but her...

"Sue?" He called out, hoping for an answer. A scream, a cry, a yell of pain. Anything. He just needed to hear her voice. Even if her voice was pained, it meant that she was there; that she was alive. Anything was better than nothing...

But another turn on the spot presented her form to him before he could listen for her answer. Her name had been just on the tip of his tongue, but it died on his lips. He'd seen her body, finally, amongst the chaos that had become of the corridor. However, she wasn't running towards him, like part of him had hoped. Even in a situation as terrible as this, he wanted her to run towards him, and throw her arms around his neck, clinging to him tightly as she did every time they finished a rescue mission. With him and Sue, there was always an underlying fear that they felt for each other, and any day where they went home alive and unharmed was a reason for thanks. It didn't matter whether they had been stopping a robbery in the right place at the right time, or if they'd just saved the world; whenever she saw him for the first time after realising they were okay, she'd hold him tightly until something forced them to release each other, usually a snide comment from Johnny.

But that wasn't happening. She wasn't running towards him. She wasn't even walking, or worse, limping. Limping would mean that she was hurt, but hurt was so much better than what he assumed when he finally caught sight of her. Hurt would mean that she was moving. But she wasn't moving. She wasn't moving at all. Instead, her body was just collapsed onto the ground, crumpled and looking as if she had been carelessly tossed aside. And there she lay, amid the rubble, so disguised by the gurney that had collapsed atop of her that it was no wonder he hadn't seen her at first. The only reason he knew that it was definitely her was because he could see the thin sheen of golden hair that had covered over a portion of the rail.

"_Sue_!" He yelled on instinct, so much fear pulsing through him as he threw himself to the ground at her side. He pushed the collapsed gurney away from her, immediately wondering whether or not it had fallen harshly on her and bruised her in some way. However, no matter how much he worried she was bruised, it didn't stop him from pulling her limp body into his arms.

As he gazed down onto her face, he felt a lump rising in his throat once again. Her face, emotionless with her unconscious state, was covered in dirt and smoke, and he hoped that was the only reason why she was so gaunt and pale. Small scratches covered her cheeks, nothing that would leave scars, but dominant enough at such lose range that it seemed to prove to him even more that their line of rescues was too dangerous for them. There was also a gash on her forehead that was bleeding steady, something that alerted him more than the tiny scratches. Her eyes were closed as if she were sleeping, but her entire body was just collapsed into a heap, seeming uncomfortable in position even though there was once a time when she had fallen comfortably into his arms whether she was waking or sleeping. She even looked like she was sleeping...a little. Her eyes were closed like she was sleeping, and her chest was rising and falling against him...wait a minute...no, it wasn't...

She wasn't breathing.

"No..._no_, God _no_." He muttered quickly, begging for his weak protests to be heard by her so that she'd start breathing. She didn't respond, and he quickly worked with his trembling hands to remove the Kevlar jacket he'd only just noticed she was wearing over her navy uniform. He placed her down on her back, away from his hold before he leant over her, performing the CPR technique he'd not practiced in years, and hoping to God that it still worked like he remembered.

He'd wanted to kiss her that day, but he didn't know that it would be the kiss of life.

The compressions he applied were strong, but he doubted himself the entire time. He wasn't medically qualified to save lives, but Sue had once joked about him being her hero after they had defeated Victor, and he wasn't about to let her down now, not when she needed him the most. Behind him, he was vaguely aware of the doctor calling out to him, but he didn't answer. Sue needed him.

"Don't do this to me, Sue."

She still wasn't breathing.

"Please, come on, wake up."

She was basically dead in his arms.

"Open your eyes, breathe. _Please_, Sue, don't leave me. You can do this, breathe!"

_Dead_. The mere thought her being dead scared him into a submission where all he could do was hope. What if she was really dead? What if he'd been there seconds too late to save her? Adrenaline got him through his routine, autopilot taking charge of the life saving technique that hadn't been put into practice since he'd been taught at the age of fifteen. He had never used the technique on a human being before, only ever the practice doll they'd used in gym class. He'd once seen Johnny performing resuscitation on a bystander who had stopped breathing after a car had hit her from behind. In fact, he was pretty sure that Johnny got three dates out of that woman as well. This wasn't a bystander though, this was Sue. This was Sue...the woman he brought coffee to in the mornings; the woman who brought him coffee if she was awake first...the woman who would drag him away from his research when he was working too hard...the woman he wanted to hold all night long...the woman he...

...the woman he _loved_.

The only woman he'd ever loved, and he didn't even know whether he was doing the correct lifesaving technique. What made it worse was that less than twenty feet away was a room full of doctors, people who were trained for saving lives, and Reed knew that he couldn't take the seconds away from her it would take to call for help. They didn't have time for that. He had to save her. She'd saved him from giving up on life in return for science, and now it was his turn to save her. Her words from that morning flooded back to him as he forced air into her lungs.

_I have a feeling._

He shuddered, able to feel this even though he was working quickly. Had _this _been her feeling? Did she have a feeling she was going to die today?

Just when he was starting to think that he was lost forever, hope came back to him, flooding over him like a tsunami. A chest compression jerked her head up from the ground, perhaps the quickest he'd ever seen her move as she began to choke for air. Choking was good. Choking meant that she was trying to breathe. Breathing meant that she was alive.

"Oh, _thank God_!" He gasped in relief, gathering the upper half of her body into his arms whilst she gasped for air to fill her empty lungs.

Now that she was safely back in his arms, the place that they both felt she belonged, he kept a tight hold on her, yet was still careful not to crush her. He just needed to feel her breathing against him, knowing that she was alive, knowing that she was there, she was okay, and, most importantly, that they were together. Her desperate breaths racked against him, and as she struggled to catch her breath, she blindly reached upwards, grabbing a handful of his malleable uniform into her fist and holding tight.

He stroked back her hair, rocking her gently in his arms. "Breathe, Sue, just breathe, that's it." He told her in soft, loud whispers as he tried to sound calm. Perhaps if he sounded calm, she might relax, but then perhaps, she might be able to hear the fear and shaking in his voice. "Deep breaths, you're okay now."

She knew instantly the voice that spoke to her; the voice of the man she'd longed for all day, and even though she couldn't catch her breath properly, she found the strength inside of her to form his name on her lips. "_Ree_..." She struggled, having to break off, as using her voice caused her to start coughing and spluttering even more. At her upset, she felt his hand against her back, rubbing it soothingly and trying to ease her airway into taking in more oxygen for her. "_Reed_..." She finally managed to croak against his chest, turning her face in towards him as he held her on the ground.

"It's me. It's Reed." He whispered to her, confirming his identity even though there was no chance of her mistaking him for someone else. Only one person in the world held her with the strength, and at the same time, a gentleness, and that person was Reed. He held her head against his chest with one hand, almost as if she were a child on the verge of sleep, so that she wouldn't lash out her head and hurt herself if she had any more injuries. "I've got you, Sue. _I've got you_." He breathed a sigh of relief through his words. "You're okay, now, I've got you."

He stayed on the ground, holding her in his arms tightly until she managed to control her breathing. Once her breaths, still deep and absorbing as much air as they could, were more regular, and she was no longer straining against coughs with each breath, he moved her further down the corridor, away from the clouds of smoke that were no doubt adding to the hindrance of her breathing. Just by the stairwell, he sat against the wall, cradling her body in his arms as she took in her deep, shaking breaths. He could only whisper words of comfort to her, assuring her that it was all over, and that she was safe, and that he was still there and not leaving, whilst her aching body wept tears with helpless sobs. All of the built up stress from the last several hours had overwhelmed her, and as much as she was trying to stop herself from crying before him, she knew it would be less exhausting to stop fighting the tears.

As they sat there, both holding onto each other so tightly, the fear off loss began to ebb away. Every second spent in each others presence was hacking away at the terror that had built up over the past few hours. Every breath was filled with each other's scent; Sue's was half-masked by the smell of gunpowder and explosives, not to mention the additional hospital smell that had held tightly to Reed's clothes, but underneath that, there was still the individual scents that defined themselves. Reed's natural scent reminded Sue of those times in the lab where he'd forget his work, and just hold her whilst they watched the stars, and she could still smell the coffee he'd had that morning, because she could remember he'd spilt a bit on the sleeve of his uniform when he'd been trying to get her out of bed. Sue, on the other hand, reminded him of happier times. He could remember simple images like drying her hair, or singing to herself in the kitchen. She smelt like flowers. He knew that it was a particular flower, but flowers had never really been his specialty, so he could never remember the name of the scent that was always on the tip of his tongue, so he simple called it 'Sue' instead.

And there they stayed; holding one another, right up until the moment Dr. Bishop approached them from the other end of the corridor, the end that they'd once been seated at. When he approached them, neither of the pair acknowledged his presence, not even when he knelt down beside Reed, trying to observe Sue whilst she was tightly cocooned in arms that wrapped more than five times around her, expanded slightly so that they gave the impression of a blanket.

"How is she?" Dr. Bishop asked.

"She's exhausted, scared, relieved..." Reed listed, not once raising his head from the spot on the ground he had been staring at whilst his head had rested on top of hers. "She's not okay. Alive, but not okay." Reed finally looked up. "She wasn't breathing."

Hearing this only added to Dr. Bishop's determination to examine her. "I have to check her." He told Reed, yet the man didn't move. "Dr. Richards, I understand that you're concerned, but I need to examine her if she stopped breathing. If her brain was without oxygen for some time, there's a risk of some damage."

At this, Reed frowned a little. "Damage?" He asked. "You mean, brain damage?"

"It's a small possibility, but I need you to let me examine her so that we can rule it out." He reasoned.

"No." Reed denied, shaking his head as if he were speaking to himself. "She can't have brain damage. She remembers me. She knows who I am, she knows that I'm here with her." He explained.

"Dr. Richards." Dr. Bishop spoke again, harsher this time, but only for Sue's safety. Reed's babbling stopped. "I need you to let me examine her."

Silently, Reed gave in, allowing Dr. Bishop the time and space he needed to examine Sue. Of course, he never once let go of her. As the doctor checked for broken limbs and any areas of internal pain, Reed scolded himself. Why hadn't he checked for any of this after he had gotten her breathing again? What if she'd been in serious pain and he hadn't noticed? Luckily, however, Dr. Bishop gave Reed a reassuring smile. "She seems to be okay, no physical damage, but we need to get her downstairs for observation though. Do you think she can walk?"

"No." Reed said simply, without even thinking about it.

Dr. Bishop cast his glance to the nearby gurney which, although on it's side, still looked fully functional. "We can take her down on this. It will do just for the elevator."

"No, it's okay, I can take her." Reed said, standing up with ease whilst keeping Sue in his arms. Dr. Bishop witnessed first hand how shaken the previously strong superhero was when she gave a tiny whimper at the movement, grasping the handful of Reed's uniform that much tighter. "It's okay, we're just going back downstairs." He whispered to her. The position she had been sitting in wasn't comfortable enough for him to hold her, and he went to stand her on her feet for a moment before he would be able to lift her again. Only, the minute he started to place her down, she tensed in his arms.

"Don't let me go." She pleaded in a tiny, scared voice that didn't sound like her own. "_Please_."

Dr. Bishop raised his eyebrows at her, almost as if he were seeing her for the first time as a human being rather than a media target. Reed held still for a moment. "I've just got to for a moment, just a second, Sue. I'm not going anywhere." He told her, and then slowly lowered her until her feet touched the ground. Then he moved around her slightly, and bent down, lifting her by the legs and wrapping them around his waist that he was held against his chest still. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, pressing her face into the side of his neck. "Is that better?" He asked her. She simply nodded against him in reply.

"She's just in shock." Dr. Bishop assured him.

Reed shot him a look, suddenly feeling very protective of the woman in his arms. "A bomb just went off in her face. Give her a break."

----

"Okay, people, they're coming down." The Chief of Surgery announced, and the few remaining doctors, along with Ben and Johnny, crowded around the elevator. Mr. Pollard had already come down into recovery, but Dr. Bishop, Reed and Sue had remained up there. Of course, the minute the elevator lights sprung into movement, everyone had rushed over there.

They all waited, and then, the doors opened.

Dr. Bishop left the elevator first, giving view to where Reed was waiting for him to move before leaving. Sue was still firmly gripped in the same embrace Reed had her in, holding herself to him in a death grip against him as if he were holding a child. He could still feel her trembling against him, and didn't pay any attention to the looks he was getting from the people around him. All that mattered was Sue, and there was no way in Hell anyone was taking her away from him again.

Johnny rushed over. "Is she okay?" He asked, shaken himself by the state of his sister.

"What happened up there?" The Chief of Surgery asked, cutting in before Reed could reply to Johnny.

"Miss Storm managed to remove the explosive from inside the cavity, and Mr. Pollard should make a firm recovery." Dr. Bishop explained.

However, his explanation didn't match up with the body language of Reed and Sue. The Chief looked at them, then back to Dr. Bishop. "I'm going to hazard a guess that something more happened, as Miss Storm is clearly in considerable distress."

Bishop nodded. "After it was removed from the room, the bomb exploded with Miss Storm in close range."

"_What_?" Johnny cried out in shock.

"Is she hurt?" The Chief asked.

"A small gash on the forehead, nothing major--"

"_Nothing major_?" Reed cut in, shooting Dr. Bishop a look. "Nothing major? She's _terrified_!" He repeated, sounding rather frustrated.

"Reed..." Ben said calmly, knowing that Reed was just over-reacting because of his feelings for Sue.

"_No_." Reed shook his head, all to aware of the fact that everyone was watching. "She's not _fine_. She is not _okay_. She's had her hand on live explosive for the past few hours, and then she watched it explode. I don't suppose you've noticed that none of the bomb squad came back down? That's because there's none of them left." A few whispers escaped everyone. "That could have been Sue that didn't make it, and I think she's more than entitled to being as scared as she is."

Maddie stepped forward from where she had been standing just behind Johnny. She put her hand on Reed's shoulder, leading him off to one side. "Come on." She coaxed him. "Let's get someone to take a look at her."

As Reed carried her, following Maddie down the corridors, he started to realise how much he really was in love with Sue. It had only occurred to him now, now that he was sure she was safe, how worried he had been. Even though it was hard to get through the waiting, knowing that she was in harms way, that feeling of wanting to be at her side, helping her through it, was one that he never wanted to go away.

It was one of the feelings that he _didn't _mind preying in his mind all day.

Would there be other times he could stand at her side and help her? He could imagine them so clearly...standing at her side at a beautiful wedding...holding her hand whilst she had their children...growing old together just like normal couples...the normal life that Sue wanted. She wanted normality, and he wanted her. Whether that meant normal life or life in the public eye, he didn't care, as long as Sue was the first thing he saw when he woke up, and the last thing he saw before he fell asleep.

It was all over now. No more danger, no more bomb, and even though it had hurt him so much when he had been scared, he never regretted a single second of it. It he hadn't been so scared for her safety, so worried and protective of her, he wouldn't have known he was truly in love.

Once they got Sue into an examination room, he found it wasn't easy to lie her down on the vacant bed. At first, she seemed determined to stay in his arms, but once she realised that he wasn't going anywhere, she fell back onto the bed beneath her. One of the doctors that Maddie had called started the examination, as Maddie herself was too shaken to do it, but Sue's shock was giving way to the fact that she was tired, and her eyes began dropping.

"Susan...Susan, you need to stay awake." The doctor told her.

"M'tired." She replied simply, turning her head to the side and pressing it against the pillow beneath her. It was an action Reed recognised from their times at the Baxter Building together. When she was starting to fall asleep, when the exhaustion was too much to fight any longer, she'd rest her head on any comfortable surface, pressing her face against pillows or blankets in a surrender to get comfortable wherever she was at the time.

"I need you to stay awake." The doctor repeated. Reed knew that she wasn't going to listen though. When she was this tired, a simple wish to stay awake wasn't going to do any good. At this point, Reed would normally be getting up from whatever he was doing and guiding her to her room for sleep. Sometimes, he got there a moment too late, and she'd have fallen asleep, in which case he'd carry her to her room.

This time, however, he crossed the room, taking a damp washcloth back over to her side. He placed it against her cheek as he gently wiped away some of the dirt and grime that covered her skin. "Sue?"

She opened her eyes, giving him a tired smile. "Hey."

"Keep talking to me, Sue. You need to stay awake for the doctors, okay?" He told her.

She nodded. "Okay."

"Okay." He returned her nod, giving her the most confident smile that he could. "You're all right now."

"Yeah." She realised. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me, you're the hero." He pointed out to her.

"You came looking for me." She reminded him.

He stopped for a moment, scared of what might have happened if he hadn't done. Frightful memories from only half an hour ago returned to him, and he saw her lying in his arms again, not breathing, not moving... "Of course, I did." He told her, as if he hadn't have contemplated not going to her side, as if it were as simple as him bringing her coffee in the morning.

"Then thank you for that." She said simply.

"Don't worry." He smiled at her, his hand lingering on her cheek as their gaze connected. "I'll _always _come looking for you."

Sue returned his smile, but he could see how exhausted she was. Behind her smile there was a softness, an innocence that came from being so sleepy that anything could be agreed to. Their eyes connected, and for a moment, the hospital room didn't exist, the other people in the room didn't exist, and nothing other than each other was important. Reed felt himself leaning down to her, and she made no move to stop him, but before either of them could realise what his intentions were, the doctor who had been checking her came up to her other side, opposite from Reed.

"Well, there's no concussion and no further injury, but to be on the safe side I'd like to keep you here tonight..."

"_No_." Sue protested quickly, jerking her head away from where she had still been watching Reed.

"Miss Storm, this is just a precaution--"

"Can't I just go home?" She asked tiredly. "_Please_. I just...I just want to go _home_."

"It would be safer for you to stay." The doctor told her.

"I'd feel safer being at home." She compromised, rolling her head round so that she was looking at Reed again. She held his gaze again, but this time there was a pleading in her blue eyes, and Reed looked to the doctor himself. She wanted to go home, because she knew she'd be safe there; not because of the Baxter Building's intense security system, but because of the man who would be there at her side.

"She'll be okay at home, won't she?" Reed asked.

"Of course, but-"

"I can keep an eye on her." Reed pointed out. "If anything happens, we'll bring her straight back."

There was a hesitation on the doctor's face, but eventually he sighed, nodding. "Okay, Miss Storm, you can go home."

----

A while later, Johnny approached Maddie where she stood in the lobby. Sue and Reed had just left in a cab, but Johnny had unfinished business to settle before he could go home for the evening. Maddie turned around when she heard the footsteps, and whilst she looked irritant and unwilling for company when she first turned, Johnny's presence softened her gaze.

"Reed's taken Sue home." He explained.

"Is she okay?" Maddie asked.

He nodded. "Yeah, just a few scrapes and bruises. I think Reed's more worried about her than she is." Johnny paused for a moment. "What about you?"

"What about me?" She asked, rather confused.

"Are you okay?"

"_Me_?" She asked. "I'm fine."

"Are you sure?" Johnny checked. "You look a little shaky."

She smiled at him. "I was just worried when the bomb went off, that's all." She admitted.

He nodded. "Okay." They just looked at each other for a moment, before Johnny forced himself to stop waiting, and he drew her into his arms, hugging her furiously against him as he kissed he side of her neck. "I love you, okay?" He told her.

"Johnny..."

"I _do_, I really do." He assured her, pulling back so that she could see the sincerity in her eyes.

Of course, what she saw in his eyes was the truth. "You heard me last night." She realised.

He nodded. "I guess we're even now."

Her tone dropped, and she looked at him incredulously. "_Seriously_? You're saying this like it's a _game_, Johnny!"

He gave her a cheeky smile. "Well, it's fun, isn't it, this love thing?" Against her wishes, Maddie smiled back at him. "Come on, let's go home." He said taking her arm and leading her towards the exit.

"Your place or mine?" She asked him.

He frowned down at her. "Isn't that supposed to be _my _line?"

They laughed, drawing closer together as they left the hospital.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven:

Reed was restless. Since they had arrived home a little over three hours ago, he hadn't been able to sit still. The moment they were back and settled, Sue had showered and then gone off to bed. She'd been quiet the whole journey home, and despite the want to stay near to Reed, she'd insisted that she should probably get some sleep. Reed, of course, had encouraged that. Neither of them assumed she'd be sleeping soundly, however. One doesn't have their hand on a live explosive for an extended period of time without one restless night.

At close to midnight, Reed wandered down the hall for what felt like a thousandth time. He'd showered when Sue had gone to bed, the bathroom still smelling like her shampoo, and that had killed a bit of time. Johnny and Maddie had returned after he had started clearing up the living room, but their presence brought with it the turning on of the television, so there was really no point in clearing up a room that wasn't even messy while they were there. Normally, the pair stayed at Maddie's apartment, but he could understand why they were at the Baxter Building tonight. Reed had to admit, he wasn't keen on Johnny bringing women home, but Maddie wasn't as temporary as the other were. In fact, the way they were sitting on the couch together, it seemed pretty clear that she was in the process of becoming permanent. He was sure that he'd heard Johnny tell Maddie that he loved her a few times whilst they'd been home. Of course, the main reason they wanted to stay, however, was because Johnny wanted to be close to Sue. It was fine knowing that she was okay, but being so close if anything wasn't okay made him feel better.

Still feeling restless, Reed had gone into the kitchen. He knew he wouldn't be able to sleep that night. He'd wait until Johnny and Maddie went off to bed, and then he'd make sure everything was turned off and then perhaps he'd go into the lab for a few hours. That would bring them round to dawn, and the following night he'd be so exhausted that sleep would come easily.

For now, though, he'd clean the kitchen - another plan that went down the drain. They hadn't even been in that day to eat meals, let alone leave any mess to clean up. There were a few coffee cups, and a couple of plates that were left over from breakfast, so he cleaned those. He put away the dried crockery and plates back into the cupboards after he'd cleaned them. He even checked that the rest of the plates were clean and didn't need washing again, but he realised afterwards that there was no point in doing that. Sue was the one who would wash up most of the time, so there would be no dirty plates after her domestic work. Sue was the sort of woman who, despite her immediate business success, seemed to have an aura of domesticity about her. Even though she could easily have a CEO position in her name within a number of years because of her intellect, it was no secret that her real life goal wasn't fancy jobs and expensive houses; it was to settle down and have a family. Reed could understand why. She'd make a wonderful mother, there was no question about that.

It was when he finally accepted that the kitchen was cleaned to perfection and that he hadn't eaten all day, that he realised the veranda doors were open.

Reed didn't remember opening them, and Johnny and Maddie had headed straight for the couch when they arrived home. Ben was staying at Alicia's...which left Sue. But, only an hour ago, Reed had heard Sue saying she was going to bed.

Frowning, he went towards the veranda doors; large glass windows that lead onto an open balcony-area, overlooking the entire city. The Baxter Building was almost famed for its view of New York. Sure enough, there was Sue, standing right up against the wall, looking out onto the city. Even in the middle of the night the city never calmed. Cars were still passing by beneath, and the city lights were still shining brightly. There was a blanket wrapped around her shoulder, and he could see the bottoms of her pyjama pants covering her ankles.

He watched her for a moment, fascinated by the way her blonde hair waved gently around her shoulders with the slight breeze. She was motionless as she bathed in the view around her, no doubt her eyes fixed up on the stars that, from that viewpoint, didn't really seem so far away. Reed smiled to himself; he could remember the first time that he'd shown her the view from the Baxter Building. In fact, he realised that he could remember every magical moment of it. The blanket over her shoulders was probably meant to keep away the midnight chill, but he couldn't imagine it helping much that she was barefoot on the patio ground. He sighed to himself. He almost lost this beautiful woman today.

After watching her for a moment, he stepped forward slowly. The patio was large, but she'd be able to hear his footsteps from the minute he set foot on the stone ground. However, she must have been so lost in her thoughts, as she didn't even notice his presence when he was standing right beside her. He leant against the wall just as she was doing, following her gaze to see that she was looking up at the constellations above them. He leaned sideways a little, nudging their shoulders together.

"Hey." He told her softly, his voice quiet.

She jumped a little when she realised someone was with her, but when she saw it was Reed she relaxed. She managed to give him a smile when she tore her eyes away from the stars. "Hey." She replied simply.

"I thought you were sleeping." He pointed out.

She shrugged underneath the blanket covering her shoulders. "I couldn't sleep." She brushed off, returning her eyes to the sky.

"Are you hungry?" He asked her.

She shook her head. "Not really." She admitted. "I guess I should eat something though. I don't think I've actually eaten anything today."

"It's late, perhaps we should wait until morning now if you're not hungry." He pointed out to her. She nodded along with him, not sure if she could face food at that moment. "I know I can't eat after..." Reed broke off, unable to say for a moment what he wanted to say.

She looked back down from the stars, directly into his eyes. "Reed..."

"You almost died today." He said softly, so quietly that his voice was almost lost against the midnight breeze, but she still heard him and the feelings in his voice.

Sue was quiet for a moment, remembering how every time Johnny had snuck up onto the operating theatre floor that he had told her worried Reed was. Whilst she was in such a position, she hadn't really imagined just how worried he had been, but now, standing right beside him, it had only taken four words for her to realise. She nodded. "Yeah, I almost died today."

His faces glazed over with emotion; regret and fear mostly. Whilst he held her gaze for a moment, eventually it became too much, looking into her eyes and knowing that, if he hadn't been there, he wouldn't be looking into them right now. It was too much for him to handle, knowing that she almost died. Too much to know that when he first pulled her into his arms, she wasn't breathing. Dead, effectively. It was just all too much.

He turned away from the city lights, and went to go back inside. He wasn't sure whether or not he'd go and find something else to try and clean, or whether he'd go straight to the lab, but he knew he couldn't stand beside her and feel so much like he'd failed her. It had, after all, been his idea for her to go with the young paramedic in the ambulance. It was his decision to send her to what was almost her death. He couldn't stand next to her and know that. Not yet.

"I _can't_..."

Her voice interrupted his leaving. He hadn't even taken two steps when she started to speak, but she broke off before she spoke what she really wanted to say. She got his attention, though. He stopped in his tracks the moment she spoke, and he turned back to her. This time, however, he was standing right behind her, with so little space between them that she could feel his breath on the back of her neck.

"I can't remember our last kiss." She continued, when she knew he wasn't leaving. Everything she had been emotional about that morning came spilling out of her. Everything she had told Johnny was now coming out to Reed. "All I could think about was that I was going to die, and I couldn't remember our last kiss. It sounds pathetic, I know, but...the last time we were _together _and _happy_...I want to be able to remember that...and I _can't_, Reed." She admitted to him, sounding just as emotional as he had done moments before. They both sighed, but she shuddered under the breath that brushed her skin. Reed felt it, as well. He knew it wasn't the midnight air that brought on that shudder. "I can't remember." She whispered, almost helplessly.

There was a silence, and Sue sighed again. However, she was rather surprised when two arms looped around her from behind. Her surprise faded, giving way to the relaxation that swept over her body from his embrace, and she settled back against him, her arms settling over his.

"It was a Thursday morning." He told her softly. His lips were right above her ear so he didn't need to raise his voice anymore. "You were wearing that ratty little M.I.T shirt you looked so good in - the one that had the hole in the back of the neck. You'd just washed your hair, and you smelt like...some kind of _flower_. I was running late for a meeting, and you said you were going to see me later...and you leaned into me, put your hand on my chest, and you kissed me. Soft. It was quick, kind of like a habit. You know, like we'd do it every day for the rest of our lives. Then you went back to drying your hair, and I went out. That was the last time we kissed...but it won't be the _very _last time."

"Sunflowers." Sue mumbled, leaning her head back against his shoulder as he held her. "My hair smelt like sunflowers. From my conditioner."

Reed lowered his face, close to the hair that, coincidently, had been recently washed. Inhaling deeply, he found that the same scent, the one he could remember vividly from that last kiss, filled him, overcoming his senses. "_Sunflowers_." He murmured in response, pulling her that much closer to him as he kissed the side of her neck.

She turned in his arms, wrapping her own around his back so that she could rest her head on his chest. Their height differences meant that, even after two years apart, she knew that when he held her, she could rest her head on the spot just below his throat. Another kiss landed on the top of her damp hair as he placed his arms around her again; this time stretching them and wrapping them around her several times, holding her tightly in a way that no other man could.

"I'm _so_ glad you didn't die today." He whispered to her, holding her so close that people watching would think they were one person.

She closed her eyes against him. The feeling was gone now, and replaced with a warm, fuzzy feeling inside of her chest. She wasn't sure how to describe it, other than to say that she was, as she had told Johnny that morning, still in love with Reed. Only now, she knew that he was in love with her as well.

"Yeah..." She agreed, tightening her secure hold on him just as much as he had done, allowing his offered harbour of safety to calm her. "Yeah, me too."


End file.
